Anthropic has removed access to its new AI models Myth 5 and Fable 5 over the weekend, after the US government imposed draconian restrictions on who could use them.
The AI lab said in a statement that the federal government told it Friday afternoon that it had become aware of a way to “jailbreak” Fable 5, bypassing limits Anthropic put in place to reduce the risk of misuse of the model. When anthropogenic Myth announced for the first timeit distributed the software only to a select group of government agencies and technology professionals because of its ability to uncover cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
The government has imposed so-called export controls on the products, which Anthropic says means it must suspend access to both models to any foreign national, whether in the United States or outside the United States. The only way to do that is to discontinue the models altogether, the company said.
Anthropic said late Friday that it disagreed that the jailbreak presented warranted such drastic action, and that such a standard could “essentially shut down” new cutting-edge AI models if applied broadly.
“As we have stated publicly, we believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, through a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear and based on technical facts,” Anthropic said. “This action does not respect these principles.”
Representatives for Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Anthropic reportedly sent staff to Washington to negotiate with the Trump administration to resolve the issue. The Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic executives spent several hours on calls Saturday with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and National Cybersecurity Director Sean Cairncross.
This is not the first conflict between AI developers and Washington over AI models. The Defense Department declared Anthropic a “supply chain risk” earlier this year after the company insisted on restrictions against the use of its Claude AI models for fully autonomous weapons or for mass domestic surveillance. The Pentagon wanted to be able to use the models for “any lawful purpose.”