Anthropic is figuring out how AI agents could negotiate on behalf of users. According to the Financial Times, the company is consulting with law firms to develop fair negotiation norms for AI agents that would haggle over prices, resolve complaints, or improve contract offers. Anthropic has already shown in experiments that stronger models negotiate better deals, which could widen societal inequality.
This isn't new territory. Anthropic is already hiring Conceptual Reasoning Fellows, specifically lawyers. The fellows will spend four months testing Claude on judgment-heavy questions in law, philosophy, cognitive science, economics, and political science for $100,000 to $167,000.
The push traces back to a data problem. In math and code, improving AI models is relatively easy because verifiable data is plentiful or easy to generate. In the humanities, that data doesn't exist, partly because right and wrong answers are rarely clear-cut. Anthropic needs experts who can build test cases and evaluations to make Claude stronger in these areas. Justin Curl, a member of technical staff researching law, institutions, and AI at Anthropic, argues that in law it's "notoriously hard to define quality."
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