WASHINGTON — The administration’s latest crackdown on Anthropic further complicates the AI titan’s already ambivalent relationship with the Pentagon, which had been simultaneously banning most Anthropic products while carving out an exemption for its latest model, Mythos, analysts told Breaking Defense.
On Friday, the Commerce Department classified Anthropic’s Mythos/Fable 5 as cyber weapons subject to export controls — which makes it illegal for Anthropic to provide them to any foreign national, even its own employees. The reasoning: Amazon reportedly told the government it had found a way around safeguards Anthropic put in place to prevent misuse of the bug-hunting capabilities that made Mythos so attractive to hackers, including the NSA.
Anthropic, in turn, shut down public access to all users, including US citizens, late on Friday, arguing it had no way to exclude only foreigners. The company says its safeguards still largely hold and the breach can be easily repaired. As of Monday, a delegation of senior Anthropic executives has reportedly flown to DC to try to resolve the dispute.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seized on the Commerce ruling as new ammunition for his highly public criticism of Anthropic as irresponsible and unreliable.
