Anthropic case: America's AI policy needs to be transparent

Keeping it hidden from the public heightens uncertainty for users

- PARMY OLSON

Whatever went on in closed-door negotiations between Anthropic and the US government, it worked.

Whatever went on in closed-door negotiations between Anthropic and the US government, it worked. Foreign access restrictions on the company’s Fable 5 and Mythos S artificial intelligence (AI) models have been dropped after Anthropic resolved the Trump administration's safety concerns. The startup’s long-time focus on investing in safety had made the initial ban sting. What is more unsettling now is that the agreements it made with the government to secure the reversal are largely a mystery.

The ban was triggered when Amazon told the US administration about concerns that certain safeguards on Fable could be circumvented. Now Anthropic has built a way to block that workaround and the fix was supported by the Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI). It did this via so-called classifiers, or smaller AI systems that detect when a request is about prohibited cybersecurity tasks. Anthropic has not disclosed more details about the changes it made beyond the broad mechanics of the fix.