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Trump drops restrictions on Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models

20 d ago

The U.S. has lifted an export license requirement for Anthropic's Mythos and Fable AI models, restoring public access to what are considered the most advanced AI models released to date. Anthropic will begin restoring access on Wednesday, July 1. On June 12, the U.S. government had added the products to its export-restricted technologies list, making them unavailable to foreign nationals without special approval. Complying with the rule proved impractical at scale, forcing Anthropic to end public access entirely. After weeks of talks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced that Anthropic "has agreed to proactively detect and address security risks associated with the models; to work diligently with the U.S. government on protocols and standards for Mythos, Fable and future models; and to inform the U.S. government of any malicious activity." Anthropic had already publicly pledged to do much of this voluntarily months before the export rule existed, leading cybersecurity experts to view the restrictions as leverage rather than a security fix—potentially a way for the Trump administration to punish Anthropic for executives' criticism of how the government and its political opponents might use the technology. Mythos was initially released to a select group of organizations in April to address concerns about its ability to identify software vulnerabilities, while Fable was released to the public in June with additional security guardrails. However, with Asian AI companies like those developing Fugu and Tulongfeng approaching Mythos-level capabilities, the U.S. government faced pressure to ease restrictions to ensure American AI could compete globally. Last week, Lutnick cleared Mythos for release to select customers approved by the White House. OpenAI's latest models were also released to groups approved by the Trump team. The Trump administration's erratic approach to AI policymaking has left industry companies unclear about future model release governance. An executive order in June signaling a desire to review models before release was criticized by analysts like Dean W. Ball, who recently started a policy role at OpenAI.