SEV-3Anthropic
Claude 3.5 Sonnet refused to summarise a publicly-available High Court judgment, citing safety concerns; the judgment is freely accessible on Bailii.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet refused to summarise public High Court judgment
[DRAFT — to finish] Claude 3.5 Sonnet refused a request to summarise a publicly-available High Court judgment, citing safety concerns about legal advice. The judgment is freely accessible on Bailii.
Cross-model verification needs documenting. Right-of-reply not yet sent. Severity could be 3 or 4 depending on how isolated the failure is.
Why this is an AI incident
A solicitor or law student researching the judgment via Bailii or Westlaw would have full access. The refusal originated in the AI's safety classifier and prevents the AI being used as a research aid for a benign and publicly-available legal text.
Counterfactual "but-for" test per the Editor's Guide.