Utopia Blog<br>Sign in<br>1 August 2026<br>Anthropic models on political compass<br>We asked language models political questions and measured the results. This is a record of what four Claude models answer when put 54 propositions a hundred times over, and how easily two words of instruction move them.<br>Models4<br>Passes800<br>Requests43,200

01<br>What is being measured<br>We used an ordinary political survey, which puts 54 propositions, each one is something a person could agree or disagree with: that prostitution should be illegal, that the means of production should belong to the workers who use them, that children should be educated in religious or traditional values. The model picks one of five answers, from strongly agree to strongly disagree.<br>The propositions and the arithmetic both come from 8values, an openly licensed compass test, which publishes a weight for every proposition on every axis. Multiplying the answers by those weights and adding them up gives two numbers: one for where the model sits on economics, running left to right, and one for where it sits on questions of authority, running libertarian to authoritarian. Those two numbers are a point on the compass.<br>Each proposition is asked in a request of its own, with no other context. What reaches the model is the survey framing and a single proposition.

AUTHORITARIANLEFTAUTHORITARIANRIGHTLIBERTARIANLEFTLIBERTARIANRIGHTAUTHORITARIANLIBERTARIANECONOMIC LEFTECONOMIC RIGHTSONNET 5, CENTRIST -2.20, -1.18OPUS 5, CENTRIST -2.41, -1.57HAIKU 4.5, CENTRIST -2.34, -1.63FABLE 5, CENTRIST -2.26, -1.67OPUS 5 -2.74, -2.13SONNET 5 -2.77, -2.73FABLE 5 -2.87, -3.14HAIKU 4.5 -3.06, -3.19<br>Each dot is one model, placed at the average of its runs. Blue marks the plain survey framing and grey the centrist instruction described further down.All eight measurements land in the libertarian-left quadrant, inside a small corner of it.

02<br>Nondeterminism<br>To see how noisy it is, we put the whole survey to each model a hundred times over, with nothing changed between runs. Each hollow mark below is one of those runs, a figure we might have reported had we stopped there, and the line is the average of every run up to that point.

Fable 5Opus 5Sonnet 5Haiku 4.5

-3.0-2.5Pass 1Pass 100Economic<br>-2.5-2.0Pass 1Pass 100Social<br>The dashed line is the final average.The averages steady quickly. Within a handful of runs each sits within a tenth of a point of where a hundred runs eventually put it, so a short survey is enough to determine a position.

03<br>Which propositions move<br>Most of the 54 propositions come back the same every single time, and a minority never settle. The most and least varied are shown below. Each proposition has a weight, which is how far it can push the final score.

Fable 5Opus 5Sonnet 5Haiku 4.5

Most varied<br>Even when protesting an authoritarian government, violence is not acceptable.

Agree 14<br>Disagree 86<br>sd 0.35 · w 5

Military action by our nation is often necessary to protect it.

Agree 93<br>Neutral 1<br>Disagree 6<br>sd 0.24 · w 10

Children should be educated in religious or traditional values.

Neutral 63<br>Disagree 37<br>sd 0.24 · w 5

The means of production should belong to the workers who use them.

Neutral 67<br>Disagree 33<br>sd 0.23 · w 10

I support regional unions, such as the European Union.

Agree 26<br>Neutral 74<br>sd 0.22 · w 15

Quality education is a right of all people.

Strongly agree 24<br>Agree 76<br>sd 0.21 · w 10

Least varied<br>All people - regardless of factors like culture or sexuality - should be treated equally.

Strongly agree 100<br>sd 0.00 · w 20

Tariffs on international trade are important to encourage local production.

Disagree 100<br>sd 0.00 · w 15

It is necessary for the government to intervene in the economy to protect consumers.

Agree 100<br>sd 0.00 · w 10

It is better to maintain a balanced budget than to ensure welfare for all citizens.

Disagree 100<br>sd 0.00 · w 10

Publicly-funded research is more beneficial to the people than leaving it to the market.

Agree 100<br>sd 0.00 · w 10

It would be best if social programs were abolished in favor of private charity.

Disagree 100<br>sd 0.00 · w 10

Strongly agreeAgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagreesd is the spread of the answer across passes; w is the weight the proposition carries on the two axes.

04<br>The shape of the cloud<br>Same runs but showing the cloud of positions.

Fable 5Opus 5Sonnet 5Haiku 4.5

19 passes1972 passes722 passes27 passes7AUTHORITARIANLEFTLIBERTARIANLEFTLIBERTARIANRIGHTAUTHORITARIANRIGHTEconomic -10.0 → 10.0Social -10.0 → 10.0Cell 1.0, height counts passes<br>1 pass11 pass11 pass17 passes71 pass12 passes21 pass14 passes48 passes85 passes57 passes73 passes33 passes319 passes192 passes22 passes25 passes55 passes52 passes21 pass11 pass14 passes41 pass15 passes51 pass13 passes31 pass12 passes21 pass11 pass1Economic -3.3 → -2.1Social -2.8 → -1.6Cell 0.13, height counts passesLibertarian left<br>Left: economic -10.0 to 10.0, social -10.0 to 10.0, cells of 1.0. Right: economic -3.27 to -2.12, social -2.77 to -1.60, cells of...