Two powerful AI models that were taken offline over national-security fears are back online, albeit on a limited basis, Axios reports.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sent a letter to Anthropic about its state-of-the-art Mythos 5 and Fable 5 AI models.
The company had received an export-control directive telling it to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals.
Anthropic’s engagement with the government has “yielded significant progress,” the June 26 letter states.
“In addition, Anthropic has committed to work with the U.S. government on protocols and standards and releases for the Covered Models.”
“Accordingly, a license will no longer be required to export, reexport, or in-country transfer (including deemed exports and reexports) the Claude Mythos 5 Model to entities identified in Annex A to this letter and their foreign national employees, or to Anthropic’s foreign national employees.”
Export controls remain in place on all organizations not explicitly approved by the administration, and Secretary Lutnick said he reserves the right to change the list of entities that have approval “at any time.”
The precise nature of the national-security concerns associated with Anthropic’s new AI models were not stated in the export-control directive.
According to Reuters, “It is Anthropic’s understanding that the government believes there is a method of bypassing, or ‘jailbreaking,’ a safeguard that would prevent Fable 5 from being used in identifying software vulnerabilities.”
Relations between Anthropic and the US government have been strained since the company refused to allow the US military to use its AI models for domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons systems.
The government responded by placing the company on a supply-chain blacklist, a directive that is set to take effect later this year.
Reuters notes, “The action also marks a major escalation of U.S. efforts to halt foreign adversaries’ AI capabilities. For years, U.S. export controls have focused on the chips and tools that power AI rather than on restricting foreign access to AI itself.”
