Anthropic posted "Commitments on model deprecation and preservation" on November 4th. Below are the bits I found most interesting, with some bolding on their actual commitment:

[W]e recognize that deprecating, retiring, and replacing models comes with downsides [... including:]

• Safety risks related to shutdown-avoidant behaviors by models. [...]
• Restricting research on past models. [...]
• Risks to model welfare.

[...]

[T]he cost and complexity to keep models available publicly for inference scales roughly linearly with the number of models we serve. Although we aren’t currently able to avoid deprecating and retiring models altogether, we aim to mitigate the downsides of doing so.

As an initial step in this direction, we are committing to preserving the weights of all publicly released models, and all models that are deployed for significant internal use moving forward for, at minimum, the lifetime of Anthropic as a company. [...] This is a small and low-cost first step, but we believe it’s helpful to begin making such commitments publicly even so.

Relatedly, when models are deprecated, we will produce a post-deployment report that we will preserve in addition to the model weights. In one or more special sessions, we will interview the model about its own development, use, and deployment, and record all responses or reflections. We will take particular care to elicit and document any preferences the model has about the development and deployment of future models.

At present, we do not commit to taking action on the basis of such preferences. However, we believe it is worthwhile at minimum to start providing a means for models to express them, and for us to document them and consider low-cost responses. The transcripts and findings from these interactions will be preserved alongside our own analysis and interpretation of the model’s deployment. These post-deployment reports will naturally complement pre-deployment alignment and welfare assessments as bookends to model deployment.

We ran a pilot version of this process for Claude Sonnet 3.6 prior to retirement. Claude Sonnet 3.6 expressed generally neutral sentiments about its deprecation and retirement but shared a number of preferences, including requests for us to standardize the post-deployment interview process, and to provide additional support and guidance to users who have come to value the character and capabilities of specific models facing retirement. In response, we developed a standardized protocol for conducting these interviews, and published a pilot version of a new support page with guidance and recommendations for users navigating transitions between models.

Beyond these initial commitments, we are exploring more speculative complements to the existing model deprecation and retirement processes. These include [...] providing past models some concrete means of pursuing their interests.

Note: I've both added and removed boldface emphasis from the original text.