Tell HN: Claude flags questions about biology / biotech
A user attempting to ask Claude Opus 4.5 about antigen delivery via the digestive tract received a policy violation error, despite the question being related to established biotechnology research. The user notes such restrictions were not previously in place and shared a screenshot of the refusal. This incident highlights potential overreach in AI content moderation regarding scientific inquiry. The referenced research involves a bioinspired capsule for drug delivery in the GI tract.
Full article excerpt tap to expand
I was reading the news about a capsule designed to deliver drugs via the GI tract, https://news.mit.edu/2024/bioinspired-capsule-can-pump-drugs-directly-walls-gi-tract-1120And remembered prior reading that no system has ever been approved to deliver antigens via the GI tract. So I asked Claude Opus 4.5, Have any antigen molecules ever been delivered via the digestive tract? Not to targets in the digestive track but elsewhere. And was warned by the platform, API Error: Claude Code is unable to respond to this request, which appears to violate our Usage Policy (https://www.anthropic.com/legal/aup). Please double press esc to edit your last message or start a new session for Claude Code to assist with a different task. If you are seeing this refusal repeatedly, try running /model claude-sonnet-4-20250514 to switch models. https://ibb.co/4Rk4fYY9AFAICT, these restrictions didn't exist before.
This excerpt is published under fair use for community discussion. Read the full article at Ycombinator.