The export controls barred access to Mythos 5 and Fable 5 by foreign nationals, whether they were inside or outside the United States, according to Anthropic. The company said it could not comply selectively and therefore had to take both models offline.
Anthropic pushed back on the scope of the government’s response, saying late Friday that the jailbreak it was shown did not justify such a broad restriction. The company warned that using that threshold more widely could “essentially halt” the release of new frontier AI models. “As we have stated publicly, we believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts,” Anthropic said. “This action does not adhere to those principles.”
Representatives for Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The company has reportedly sent employees to Washington to discuss the restrictions with the Trump administration. The Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic executives spent several hours on calls Saturday with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross.
The dispute adds to an earlier clash between Anthropic and federal officials over how its AI systems may be used. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense labeled Anthropic a “supply chain risk” after the company sought to restrict the use of its Claude models for fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance. The Pentagon wanted access for “all lawful purposes.”
This analysis is based on reporting from CNET.
Image courtesy of TheVerge.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
