US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick warned Anthropic that it must obtain government permission before giving foreign nationals access to its most advanced AI models, according to a Bloomberg report citing a letter sent to CEO Dario Amodei.
The letter, dated Friday, ordered Anthropic not to provide its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models to foreign nationals anywhere in the world without a license from the Commerce Department.
Lutnick cited US export control laws covering civilian technology that could be used for intelligence purposes by an adversary’s military, though the letter did not explain why the restrictions were necessary.
The directive prompted Anthropic to disable access to both models late Friday. The company has since held talks with US officials, including meetings between technical staff and Commerce Department officials, as it seeks to resolve the issue.
Anthropic has said it believes the order was issued after the US government became aware of a possible jailbreak in Fable 5, a recently released version of Mythos that the company had restricted from performing cybersecurity tasks.
