US blocks foreign access to Anthropic’s newest AI models over security risks

Washington has ordered Anthropic – a leading entity in America’s AI sector – to block all foreign nationals from accessing its latest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, citing national security concerns, according to the Silicon Valley-based firm.

According to Anthropic’s statement, issued on Friday night, the directive arrived at 5.21pm Eastern time and extends even to Anthropic’s own foreign-born employees.

“The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Anthropic models will not be affected,” the company said.

Anthropic released Fable 5 and Mythos 5 on Tuesday, marketing them as its most powerful models to date. Both systems have similar underlying technical foundations, but only Fable 5 was released to the public with additional safety and security restrictions, while Mythos 5 was released only to trusted partners.

Anthropic previously warned that Fable 5 “could be misused to cause serious damage” without the safeguards it introduced, including restrictions on discussing sensitive cybersecurity, biology and chemistry topics.