Key facts
- The U.S. government ordered Anthropic to suspend foreign national access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models.
- National security concerns, potentially related to bypassing safeguards, were cited for the directive.
- Anthropic disabled the models for all users globally to ensure compliance.
- This action represents an escalation in U.S. efforts to restrict foreign access to advanced AI systems.
- The directive was issued by the Commerce Department.
- Anthropic stated it received only verbal evidence of a potential narrow jailbreak.
The Trump administration has ordered Anthropic to suspend foreign national access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models, citing national security concerns. Anthropic confirmed the directive and complied by disabling the models globally for all users, a move that has raised concerns about technological sovereignty.
According to Anthropic, the U.S. government cited national security reasons, reportedly related to a discovered method to bypass or 'jailbreak' the AI models' safeguards. The company stated it received the order without specific details but understood the concern was that a bypass could allow the AI to identify software vulnerabilities. Anthropic disagreed with the decision, noting that the vulnerabilities were minor, present in other publicly available models, and that no universal jailbreak had been found.
To comply with the government's legal order, Anthropic suspended access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users worldwide. Amazon's cloud unit AWS confirmed it was asked to revoke access to the models for all users in all regions. This action marks a significant escalation in U.S. efforts to restrict foreign access to advanced AI technologies.
U.S. officials, including Pentagon's chief information officer Kirsten Davies, supported prioritizing national security over commercial interests. Former White House official Dean Ball commented that the order suggests all non-Americans might be restricted from using Anthropic's latest models. The decision has prompted discussions among UK officials about the importance of AI capabilities for national security and technological sovereignty, with concerns raised about potential economic and security disparities.