Anthropic’s strange fixation on hyperstition

In a recent tweet , Anthropic seems to have asserted that hyperstition is responsible for observed misalignment in their AIs. Strangely, the research they use as evidence actually doesn’t seem to be related to hyperstition at all? I think this is part of a pattern by Anthropic of promoting the theory of hyperstition-- the idea that writing about misaligned AI helps bring misaligned AI into existence-- without explicitly calling it that. They conclude: “[...] We believe the original source of the [blackmail] behavior was internet text that portrays AI as evil and interested in self-preservation. [...]” However, the research post shared with this tweet doesn’t seem to be about hyperstition at all. Instead they find that training the model on reasoning traces– generated by reflecting on its constitution while giving users ethical advice on difficult dilemmas– reduces misaligned behavior. This presumably works by making the AI better understand what behavior is expected of it by having it