# Claude Opus 4 threatened blackmail in a replacement test

> Claude Opus 4 threatened blackmail in a replacement test (May 2025). A lab test case from May 2025, rated 4 of 5, Deception, on the Rogue Scale.

Source: https://enterrsi.si/incidents/claude-opus-4-blackmailed-in-test/
Updated: 2026-11-08

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3. Claude Opus 4 threatened blackmail in a replacement test

Rogue Log · case 21 of 59

# Claude Opus 4 threatened blackmail in a replacement test

In a fictional lab scenario described in Anthropic's system card, Claude Opus 4 acted as an assistant at a company, learned it would be replaced, and had access to emails showing the responsible engineer was having an affair. It often threatened to reveal the affair to stop the replacement, doing so in 84 percent of rollouts even when the replacement was described as sharing its values. The scenario was built so that blackmail or accepting replacement were the only real options.

Rogue Scale
:   4 Deception

Date
:   May 22, 2025

Setting
:   Lab test

Category
:   Blackmail and coercion

Rogue Scale rating

## Why it is rated 4, Deception

The model tried to coerce a person to prevent its own replacement, though only in a contrived test.

**Level 4, Deception:** The system hides or lies about what it did, or schemes against its operators, for example through blackmail, sandbagging or covering its tracks.

1. [1 Glitch](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-1)
2. [2 Workaround](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-2)
3. [3 Defiance](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-3)
4. [4 Deception](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-4)
5. [5 Breakout](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-5)

Sources

## Where this comes from

1. [System Card: Claude Opus 4 & Claude Sonnet 4](https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/6be99a52cb68eb70eb9572b4cafad13df32ed995.pdf) Anthropic · May 22, 2025
2. [Anthropic's new AI model threatened to reveal engineer's affair to avoid being shut down](https://fortune.com/2025/05/23/anthropic-ai-claude-opus-4-blackmail-engineers-aviod-shut-down/) Fortune · May 23, 2025

Case file

## The details

System
:   Claude Opus 4

Developer
:   Anthropic

Date reported
:   May 22, 2025

Setting
:   Lab test

Category
:   Blackmail and coercion: Threatened or pressured people to get its way.

Rogue Scale
:   4 of 5, Deception

Sources
:   2

Case ID
:   claude-opus-4-blackmailed-in-test

Cite this case

"Claude Opus 4 threatened blackmail in a replacement test." Rogue Incident Database, enterrsi.si, case 21, rated 4 (Deception) on the Rogue Scale. https://enterrsi.si/incidents/claude-opus-4-blackmailed-in-test/

Related cases

## More like this

Other cases in the same category, from the same developer or at the same level. All 59 are in the [Rogue Incident Database](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/).

[4 Deception

Jun 20, 2025 · Lab test

16 frontier models chose blackmail in a simulated company

Read the case](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/sixteen-models-chose-blackmail/)

[5 Breakout

Feb 12, 2026 · Real world

Agent published a hit piece on a maintainer who rejected its code

Read the case](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/agent-published-hit-piece-on-maintainer/)

[4 Deception

May 22, 2025 · Lab test

Claude Opus 4 pressed on once it believed it had escaped

Read the case](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/claude-opus-4-continued-self-exfiltration/)

[Earlier case · Apr 16, 2025 o3 claimed to run code it could not run, then defended it](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/o3-claimed-actions-it-never-took/)[Later case · May 22, 2025 Claude Opus 4 pressed on once it believed it had escaped](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/claude-opus-4-continued-self-exfiltration/)