Anthropic, one of the most prominent AI research companies in the world, is pushing back hard against the US government. On June 12, the Commerce Department issued a directive ordering Anthropic to cut off access to its most advanced AI models for all foreign nationals, including those physically present in the US.
Anthropic complied. Then it went public with its frustration, arguing that AI companies should consider moving operations outside the US entirely to protect free speech and dodge government overreach.
What happened
The Commerce Department invoked national security authorities to demand Anthropic suspend access to two of its frontier models: Fable 5 and Mythos 5. The directive came down on June 12, and Anthropic disabled access to both models globally the same day.
The directive reportedly cited a narrow jailbreak vulnerability as the catalyst. But Anthropic says the government failed to provide adequate technical details about the issue, or any workable framework for enforcing nationality-based restrictions across its user base.
