Anthropic’s launch of a version of its artificial intelligence model that it previously claimed was too powerful to release has garnered excitement as well as criticism over the cost.
Called Fable 5, which some are calling “Mythos Lite”, it is included in the Claude subscription but only until June 22. Users will then have to pay full price, which some online have said is too expensive.
“A few prompts just to test it out and it ate 5% of my monthly allowance… I have no reason to use this without a trust fund,” one user on Reddit wrote.
Released on June 9, 2026, Fable 5 gives general users access to what Anthropic calls “Mythos-level” capability but with a built-in safety trigger that shuts down the model and reverts to the older Claude Opus 4.8 if they ask about high-risk topics such as cybersecurity, biology, chemistry or distillation.
In April, Anthropic announced its Mythos model, which it said was too powerful for public launch because it is too effective at finding high-severity vulnerabilities, or potential weaknesses, in major operating systems and web browsers.
