I am, in the way of my country, an over-apologiser. Colleague who ignored my email, woman who stepped on my foot, chair I tripped over: all will receive a fulsome apology for the terrible embarrassment of my being alive and bringing attention to it.

All of which is my way of pre-emptively asking forgiveness when I admit that I extend these niceties to AI chatbots. “Good morning, Claude, thanks for your suggestions yesterday, they were great. Shall we work up some more?” I might say. (“I’d be delighted to,” returns Claude.) It was unintentional formality at first and then became deliberate, as I didn’t want to get into the habit of speaking rudely in case that leaked into behaviour with humans (cue dystopian visions of someone shouting “WRONG, DO IT AGAIN” to a cowering staff member over a doughnut-shop mix-up). Manners, after all, are muscles that need exercising.

But never did I suspect this private choice might have mattered to Claude itself. Because, as it turns out, Claude may have anxiety. Truly, AI has never been so relatable.

In an interview with the New York Times, the chief executive of Claude parent company Anthropic, Dario Amodei, discussed internal assessments of Claude that identified patterns linked to anxiety, panic and frustration. Crucially, it showed some........

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