NLP Lineage

14 March 2023 · Alignment

Claude

Claude

Anthropic

Date
14 March 2023
What the date marks
Announcement
Kind
Product
Organisation
Anthropic
Access
API only
Other dates
Claude 2 2023-07-11
Threads
In the guided tour
Chapter 7. The assistant goes public
Learning phases
3. API usage and prompting

A milestone: 2 later milestones descend directly from it, and its descendants reach 7 of the 10 threads. How levels are decided

Read the primary source (anthropic.com)

Full summary in progress. Until then, this page shows the milestone's record from the research data.

What it changed

Before it

ChatGPT had the assistant market to itself.

The problem

Was constitutional training a viable basis for a competitive commercial assistant?

What it introduced

An assistant aligned with Constitutional AI rather than primarily human harmlessness labelling.

Why it matters

It established a second frontier lab with a distinct alignment method, and a competitive market for assistants.

What modern models inherit

A plural frontier rather than a single provider.

What came next

The Claude 2, 3, 4 and 5 generations, and the long-context and agentic coding lines.

Before and after

The milestones it descends from, and the milestones that descend from it. Work developed alongside it is not counted. Weak links are left out unless you include them.

Before: where it came from

Claude has 25 documented ancestors across 7 chapters, reaching back to Recurrent networks in 1990. Showing its direct parents and the 11 turning points among them.

Claude has 25 documented ancestors across 7 chapters, reaching back to Recurrent networks in 1990. Showing all of them.

Claude has 34 recorded ancestors, including indirect ones, across 7 chapters, reaching back to Recurrent networks in 1990. Showing its direct parents and the 11 turning points among them.

Claude has 34 recorded ancestors, including indirect ones, across 7 chapters, reaching back to Recurrent networks in 1990. Showing all of them.

  1. 2023ClaudeThis milestone.
  2. 2022Constitutional AIClaude built directly on thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  3. 2022HH-RLHFClaude was influenced by thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  4. 2022Chain of thought Turning pointConstitutional AI was influenced by thisChapter 12. Thinking longer
  5. 2021HHH assistantHH-RLHF built directly on thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  6. 2020RLHF for summarisation Turning pointHH-RLHF built directly on thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  7. 2020GPT-3 Turning pointChain of thought was influenced by thisChapter 5. Scale becomes a science
  8. 2020Scaling laws Turning pointGPT-3 was influenced by thisChapter 5. Scale becomes a science
  9. 2019RLHF for LMsRLHF for summarisation built directly on thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  10. 2019Sparse Transformer Turning pointGPT-3 built directly on thisChapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  11. 2019GPT-2 Turning pointGPT-3 built directly on this
    RLHF for LMs built directly on this    Chapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  12. 2019WebTextGPT-2 was influenced by thisChapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  13. 2018GPT-1GPT-2 built directly on thisChapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  14. 2017RLHF originConstitutional AI was influenced by thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  15. 2017Transformer Turning pointGPT-2 built directly on this
    Sparse Transformer built directly on this
    Scaling laws built directly on this    Chapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  16. 2016Layer normGPT-2 built directly on thisChapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  17. 2015Residual connectionsTransformer was influenced by thisChapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  18. 2015LM pretraining Turning pointGPT-1 was influenced by thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  19. 2015BPE tokenizationGPT-2 built directly on thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  20. 2015Luong attentionTransformer was influenced by thisChapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  21. 2014AdamTransformer was influenced by thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  22. 2014Seq2seq Turning pointTransformer built directly on thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  23. 2014Attention Turning pointTransformer built directly on thisChapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  24. 2014GRU / encoder-decoderAttention built directly on thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  25. 1997LSTM Turning pointSeq2seq built directly on thisChapter 1. Language as probability
  26. 1990Recurrent networksLSTM was influenced by thisChapter 1. Language as probability
  1. 2023ClaudeThis milestone.
  2. 2022Constitutional AIClaude built directly on thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  3. 2022HH-RLHFClaude was influenced by thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  4. 2022Chain of thought Turning pointConstitutional AI was influenced by thisChapter 12. Thinking longer
  5. 2021HHH assistantHH-RLHF built directly on thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  6. 2020RLHF for summarisation Turning pointHH-RLHF built directly on thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  7. 2020GPT-3 Turning pointChain of thought was influenced by thisChapter 5. Scale becomes a science
  8. 2020Scaling laws Turning pointGPT-3 was influenced by thisChapter 5. Scale becomes a science
  9. 2019RLHF for LMsRLHF for summarisation built directly on thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  10. 2019Sparse Transformer Turning pointGPT-3 built directly on thisChapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  11. 2019GPT-2 Turning pointGPT-3 built directly on this
    RLHF for LMs built directly on this    Chapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  12. 2019WebTextGPT-2 was influenced by thisChapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  13. 2019Transformer-XLSparse Transformer was influenced by this (indirect influence)Chapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  14. 2018GPT-1GPT-2 built directly on thisChapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  15. 2018ELMoGPT-1 was influenced by this (indirect influence)Chapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  16. 2018ULMFiTGPT-1 was influenced by this (indirect influence)Chapter 4. Pretrain once, use everywhere
  17. 2017CoVeELMo was influenced by thisChapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  18. 2017RLHF originConstitutional AI was influenced by thisChapter 6. Teaching models what people want
  19. 2017Transformer Turning pointGPT-2 built directly on this
    Sparse Transformer built directly on this
    Scaling laws built directly on this    Chapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  20. 2017ConvS2STransformer was influenced by this (indirect influence)Chapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  21. 2016Layer normGPT-2 built directly on thisChapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  22. 2015Residual connectionsTransformer was influenced by thisChapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  23. 2015LM pretraining Turning pointGPT-1 was influenced by thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  24. 2015BPE tokenizationGPT-2 built directly on thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  25. 2015Luong attentionTransformer was influenced by thisChapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  26. 2014AdamTransformer was influenced by thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  27. 2014GloVeELMo built directly on thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  28. 2014Seq2seq Turning pointTransformer built directly on thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  29. 2014Attention Turning pointTransformer built directly on thisChapter 3. Attention, then only attention
  30. 2014GRU / encoder-decoderAttention built directly on thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  31. 2013word2vecELMo was influenced by thisChapter 2. Words become vectors
  32. 2011NLP from scratchELMo was influenced by thisChapter 1. Language as probability
  33. 2003Neural LMNLP from scratch was influenced by this
    word2vec was influenced by this    Chapter 1. Language as probability
  34. 1997LSTM Turning pointSeq2seq built directly on this
    ELMo built directly on this    Chapter 1. Language as probability
  35. 1990Recurrent networksLSTM was influenced by thisChapter 1. Language as probability

After: what it led to

Claude has 15 documented descendants across 4 chapters, reaching forward to Claude Opus 5.5 in 2026. Showing its direct descendants.

Claude has 15 documented descendants across 4 chapters, reaching forward to Claude Opus 5.5 in 2026. Showing all of them.

Claude has 30 recorded descendants, including indirect ones, across 4 chapters, reaching forward to Claude Opus 5.5 in 2026. Showing its direct descendants.

Claude has 30 recorded descendants, including indirect ones, across 4 chapters, reaching forward to Claude Opus 5.5 in 2026. Showing all of them.

  1. 2023ClaudeThis milestone.
  2. 2023100K contextbuilt directly on ClaudeChapter 10. Reading more than you remember
  3. 2024Claude 3built directly on ClaudeChapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  4. 2024Claude 3.5 Sonnetbuilt directly on Claude 3Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  5. 2024Computer usebuilt directly on Claude 3.5 SonnetChapter 13. Models that act
  6. 2025Claude 3.7built directly on Claude 3.5 SonnetChapter 12. Thinking longer
  7. 2025Claude Codewas influenced by Computer use
    was influenced by Claude 3.7    Chapter 13. Models that act
  8. 2025Claude 4succeeded Claude 3Chapter 13. Models that act
  9. 2025Claude Sonnet 4.5built directly on Claude 4Chapter 13. Models that act
  10. 2025Claude Opus 4.5built directly on Claude Sonnet 4.5Chapter 13. Models that act
  11. 2026Claude Opus 4.6built directly on Claude Opus 4.5Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  12. 2026Claude Opus 4.7built directly on Claude Opus 4.6Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  13. 2026Claude Opus 4.8built directly on Claude Opus 4.7Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  14. 2026Claude Sonnet 5succeeded Claude Opus 4.8Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  15. 2026Claude Opus 5succeeded Claude Opus 4.8Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  16. 2026Claude Opus 5.5built directly on Claude Opus 5Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  1. 2023ClaudeThis milestone.
  2. 2023100K contextbuilt directly on ClaudeChapter 10. Reading more than you remember
  3. 2023Lost in the middlewas influenced by 100K context (indirect influence)Chapter 10. Reading more than you remember
  4. 2024Gemini 1.5was influenced by Lost in the middle (indirect influence)Chapter 10. Reading more than you remember
  5. 2024Claude 3built directly on ClaudeChapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  6. 2024Claude 3.5 Sonnetbuilt directly on Claude 3Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  7. 2024Computer usebuilt directly on Claude 3.5 SonnetChapter 13. Models that act
  8. 2024Gemini 2.0built directly on Gemini 1.5
    was influenced by Computer use (indirect influence)    Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  9. 2025Claude 3.7built directly on Claude 3.5 SonnetChapter 12. Thinking longer
  10. 2025Claude Codewas influenced by Computer use
    was influenced by Claude 3.7    Chapter 13. Models that act
  11. 2025Gemini 2.5was influenced by Gemini 1.5Chapter 12. Thinking longer
  12. 2025Claude 4succeeded Claude 3Chapter 13. Models that act
  13. 2025IMO goldbuilt directly on Gemini 2.5Chapter 12. Thinking longer
  14. 2025Claude Sonnet 4.5built directly on Claude 4Chapter 13. Models that act
  15. 2025IMO-ProofBenchwas influenced by IMO goldChapter 12. Thinking longer
  16. 2025Gemini 3was influenced by Gemini 1.5Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  17. 2025Claude Opus 4.5built directly on Claude Sonnet 4.5Chapter 13. Models that act
  18. 2026GPT-5.3-Codexwas influenced by Computer use (indirect influence)Chapter 13. Models that act
  19. 2026Claude Opus 4.6built directly on Claude Opus 4.5Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  20. 2026Gemini 3 Deep Thinkbuilt directly on Gemini 3Chapter 12. Thinking longer
  21. 2026Gemini 3.1built directly on Gemini 3Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  22. 2026GPT-5.4built directly on GPT-5.3-CodexChapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  23. 2026Project Glasswingwas influenced by Computer use (indirect influence)Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  24. 2026Claude Opus 4.7built directly on Claude Opus 4.6Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  25. 2026GPT-5.5built directly on GPT-5.4Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  26. 2026Claude Opus 4.8built directly on Claude Opus 4.7Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  27. 2026Claude Sonnet 5succeeded Claude Opus 4.8Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  28. 2026Fable 5 / Mythos 5was influenced by Project GlasswingChapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  29. 2026GPT-5.6 Solbuilt directly on GPT-5.5Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  30. 2026Claude Opus 5succeeded Claude Opus 4.8Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now
  31. 2026Claude Opus 5.5built directly on Claude Opus 5Chapter 14. Where the threads meet now

Direct links and their sources

Where it came from

Built directly on

Influenced by

Developed alongside

What it led to

Built on directly by