US lifts curbs on Anthropic's Fable, Mythos AI models
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Anthropic said on Tuesday that the US Commerce Department lifted export controls on its Fable and Mythos AI models, less than three weeks after the company was ordered to suspend access to its most advanced AI models over national security risks. Washington has stepped up oversight of new model releases to identify potential threats amid concerns that advanced AI models could be misused by military intelligence in China, Russia or other countries of concern. Anthropic disabled its Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models following a June 12 export-control order. Last week, the US government allowed the company to release Mythos 5 but only to some “trusted” US organisations. “We’ve received notice that the Department of Commerce has lifted export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5. We’ll begin restoring access tomorrow,” Anthropic said in an X post. A letter to Anthropic from US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that was seen by Reuters also said the export controls were withdrawn. Anthropic had “agreed to proactively detect and address security risks associated with the models,” Lutnick said. It had also agreed to work diligently with the US government on protocols for Mythos, Fable and future models and to inform the US government of any malicious activity, he added. US government might re-evaluate if circumstances change Lutnick, however, said that the department “reserves the right to re-evaluate the decisions made in this letter and the necessity of re-imposing a license requirement, should circumstances change or should Anthropic fail to adhere to its commitments”. Both Fable and Mythos use the same underlying AI model, but Fable is designed to be widely available for public use whereas some safeguards are lifted for Mythos. Anthropic has implemented a new safeguard that targets and blocks a technique that it believes the government viewed as a method of bypassing or “jailbreaking” Fable 5, a company source said, declining to be identified. The source, however, added t