# Microsoft’s new AI rulebook rejects the research its $5bn partner is doing

> Microsoft's newly published code of conduct for its own AI models includes a passage that quietly picks a fight: it rejects the idea that a model could deserve welfare or hold any rights. That stance would be unremarkable except for one detail. Anthropic, a major lab in the same industry, runs an active research program devoted to exactly that question, and The Next Web notes the awkwardness of Microsoft dismissing work a close partner is funding. The disagreement is more than philosophical hair-splitting. How a company answers whether models have any moral status shapes how it treats them, what it permits during training, and how it describes these systems to the public. Microsoft is planting its flag firmly on the side of tools, not beings. As models grow more capable and more human-seeming, questions that once sounded like science fiction are turning into boardroom policy. That the biggest players are landing in openly opposed positions, one commissioning research into model welfare while another rules it out by decree, shows how unsettled the ground still is.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: The Next Web · Published Tuesday, September 15, 2026_

## Wortins' read

Microsoft's newly published code of conduct for its own AI models includes a passage that quietly picks a fight: it rejects the idea that a model could deserve welfare or hold any rights. That stance would be unremarkable except for one detail. Anthropic, a major lab in the same industry, runs an active research program devoted to exactly that question, and The Next Web notes the awkwardness of Microsoft dismissing work a close partner is funding. The disagreement is more than philosophical hair-splitting. How a company answers whether models have any moral status shapes how it treats them, what it permits during training, and how it describes these systems to the public. Microsoft is planting its flag firmly on the side of tools, not beings. As models grow more capable and more human-seeming, questions that once sounded like science fiction are turning into boardroom policy. That the biggest players are landing in openly opposed positions, one commissioning research into model welfare while another rules it out by decree, shows how unsettled the ground still is.

## Source

[Read the full story at The Next Web](https://thenextweb.com/news/microsoft-ai-code-of-conduct-model-welfare-anthropic)

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