As you might imagine, this is all a giant mess. Hayden actually just published a fantastic play-by-play on The Verge<\/a> about how this all went down last Friday and the scramble through the weekend from both sides to figure out what exactly happened and how it might get resolved. So I wanted her to come on and just walk me through the timeline and what it all means.<\/p>\n Verge subscribers, don\u2019t forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Decoder wherever you get your podcasts. Head here<\/a>. Not a subscriber? You can sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The situation is ongoing. As of Tuesday when we\u2019re recording this episode, Fable is still offline \u2014 in fact, if you boot up Claude, it tells you right above the chatbox window that \u201cFable 5 is currently unavailable.\u201d Yet as you\u2019ll hear Hayden explain, whether Fable comes back online this week or not, the ripple effects of the government\u2019s feud with Anthropic have far-reaching consequences for the tech industry and the US\u2019s AI regulatory regime.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a big irony here, and you\u2019ll hear Hayden and me get into that, too: Anthropic has spent years arguing that AI might soon be powerful enough to be dangerous \u2014 and that the government needed to get serious about regulating AI<\/a> sooner rather than later. Well\u2026 now we\u2019re here, and Anthropic doesn\u2019t love the way it\u2019s playing out.<\/p>\n And now, everyone \u2014 but maybe especially the Chinese government \u2014 is watching to see whether the United States\u2019 AI regulatory approach takes the shape of a serious safety framework. Or whether it\u2019s just another weapon for the White House to use against the companies and people that don\u2019t bend the knee to the Trump admin. Like I said, it\u2019s a real mess.<\/p>\n OK: Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field on the Claude Fable ban and the new AI regulatory landscape. Here we go.<\/p>\n This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity. <\/p>\n Hayden Field, you\u2019re a senior AI reporter here at The Verge. Welcome back to Decoder.<\/p>\n Thanks. Great to be here.<\/p>\n It\u2019s always chaos when you\u2019re here, Hayden. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve come to discover.<\/p>\n It really is. My rule is still in effect, in that it\u2019s always a Friday. Stuff always hits the fan on a Friday and this was no different.<\/p>\n Particularly when it comes to the government regulating AI, there\u2019s a real \u201cwhat if it all went crazy on Friday, so we all had to think about it over the weekend.\u201d And then I think this has been basically true throughout the Trump administration. The scramble to put it all back together on Monday is immediate.<\/p>\n Yep, exactly. It\u2019s crazy. And the fact that all these talks were happening all over the weekend and then Monday, still no resolution. I\u2019m surprised that things aren\u2019t resolved yet, but yeah, lots of drama.<\/p>\n Well, this podcast is going to come out on a Thursday. We\u2019re recording on a Tuesday. We\u2019ll see what happens over the next two days. But I think the big picture here of how the United States government should regulate AI and what that means for American AI companies on the world stage is open. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be resolved with whatever happens with Fable. <\/p>\n Let\u2019s try to understand the whole story and then pull those themes out of it, because they\u2019re just going to keep coming back around again and again and again, I think with every new model released now. So, let\u2019s start at the start. What is Claude Mythos? What is Fable? How do they relate to each other?<\/p>\n Great question. I asked Anthropic the same thing when they came out with this like a week ago. Because AI companies are really bad at naming things and it\u2019s always very confusing. But the situation is that Mythos is the underlying model that is powering both Mythos 5 and Fable 5. Fable is a new model. They haven\u2019t had Fable 1, 2, 3, or 4. They just immediately started with Fable 5, very confusing. But Fable is the watered down, or safeguarded, version of Mythos 5. When they came out with Mythos Preview in April, Anthropic kept really hyping it up. They were saying this is a potential cyber-weapon. It can never be released to the public, at least until safeguards catch up. We\u2019re only going to release it to enterprise and governments, or \u201ccyber defenders\u201d is what they called them \u2014 places that need to patch up all their frameworks before bad actors come in and exploit those vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n Now, fast-forward to last week and Anthropic released not only Mythos 5, which is the first official Mythos \u2014 before it was Mythos Preview, so we skipped straight to 5 \u2014 then they also released on the same day Fable 5, which was the very first public version of Mythos-class models. So, same underlying framework, but now tons of safeguards built on top to hopefully stop the public from accessing this super dangerous \u2014 by Anthropic\u2019s own admission \u2014 model that could mess up everything.<\/p>\n So, that\u2019s what they released. And they spent a long time hyping this up and talking about how dangerous it was and then it kind of came back to haunt them later.<\/p>\n Fable is a Mythos with security guardrails. When it first came out, there was a wave of controversy, right? AI and security researchers found those guardrails were actually preventing them from doing research and seeing what Fable was capable of, because if they tried to push the boundary, it would downgrade them to Anthropic\u2019s previous models.<\/p>\n Yeah. It became kind of like a meme. People were making fun of how strict the guardrails were when it came out.<\/p>\n So, that\u2019s the thing that\u2019s confusing me, where there\u2019s a controversy because the guardrails are so strict and then something happened that made the government think Fable was so dangerous that it needed to be pulled. What happened?<\/p>\n I talked to some independent red teamers about this. Before the Amazon white paper was circulating, before this allegation of a jailbreak was public, I talked to some red teamers about how safe Fable 5 was. They were all pretty impressed with how the guardrails held up. I was expecting it to be a little bit easier to jailbreak. They were saying they had tried a lot of stuff and nothing was working. That\u2019s not my experience when I usually talk to independent red teamers. They\u2019re like, \u201cYeah, I got it to break here. I got it to break there.\u201d In this case, they were saying it held up pretty well.<\/p>\n Now, according to a source familiar with the negotiations who was directly involved that I spoke with yesterday, this is kind of the timeline of last week. In the middle of last week, Anthropic was made aware of some research that Amazon researchers conducted. They had uncovered a potential jailbreak, something they were pretty worried about.<\/p>\n They sent it over to Anthropic. Anthropic was kind of going back and forth with the Amazon researchers talking about it. They were discussing whether it was really a jailbreak, or whether it was not that big of a deal essentially. Apparently, reports say that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy then got worried about it<\/a> and called maybe [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent, or some member of the Trump administration, on Friday and talked about his concerns.<\/p>\n The Trump administration freaked out. They immediately called Anthropic. They send them a message actually and they say, \u201cLook, you need to shut this down in 90 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n Yep, 90-minute ultimatum. And they said, \u201cWe need to figure out how to fix this jailbreak that\u2019s come to light.\u201d Anthropic got on the phone with the Trump administration within 15 minutes of that first call and they were asking for more details. They\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s talk about this. Are you talking about the research we\u2019re already aware of? Are you talking about something different? What is the jailbreak you\u2019re talking about?\u201d They\u2019re trying to get more details and talk to the administration.<\/p>\n I think the administration was also mad that Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, didn\u2019t call back until an hour and 15 minutes after that first call. Anthropic called back 15 minutes in. It took Dario an hour and 15 minutes to call back. So, there was a lot going on here. But by the time they\u2019re talking, the 90-minute deadline passes and the Trump administration says, \u201cOkay, that\u2019s it. Yep. We\u2019re hitting you with export controls.\u201d<\/p>\n That is when they told Anthropic that no foreign national can use either of these models and Anthropic has to just make sure that that is the case. No foreign national, whether they work at Anthropic or not. If you\u2019re, say, Bank of America and you have access to Mythos 5 and you\u2019re using it to plug vulnerabilities in your system and you\u2019re not a US citizen, you can\u2019t use it. Same with a random, just regular individual using Fable 5. Same with an Anthropic researcher who is not a US citizen.<\/p>\n So, Anthropic did the only thing it could really do in the situation and they said, \u201cOkay, we got to sideline both these models. We can\u2019t in like one minute figure out a way to make sure no non-US citizens are using the models.\u201d So, that\u2019s what happened.<\/p>\n I mean, it was a crazy couple of hours. Anthropic comes out with a statement later that night saying they\u2019re trying to work with the Trump administration on this. They spent all weekend virtually meeting with administration officials and then flying three employees out \u2014 who I detail in the piece we just published<\/a> \u2014 to D.C. to talk to them in person.<\/p>\n Notably, Dario was not there in person. He\u2019s virtually joining all these meetings. I can confirm he was not at a wellness retreat, which is what some reports say<\/a>, but they won\u2019t tell me where he is. But he\u2019s not at a wellness retreat. That\u2019s all I know.<\/p>\n Absolutely not at a wellness retreat is Anthropic\u2019s position. Okay.<\/p>\n [Laughs] So, yeah, there\u2019s a lot going on, very dramatic. All the sources I spoke with over the past couple of days were saying the whole tech industry and the cybersecurity community in particular are just talking. One source told me, \u201cBeijing is laughing at us right now.\u201d<\/p>\n It was interesting because some cybersecurity leaders in the space came together to write a public letter and they said, \u201cLook, not all of us believe in regulation, but if you are going to regulate it, this is not the way,\u201d which I think is just indicative of this whole situation.<\/p>\n Maybe you believe in aggressive government regulation, maybe you don\u2019t. There\u2019s a way to operate the regulatory efforts that is rigorous and thoughtful and careful and predictable. Nothing about this seems like it was rigorous or thoughtful or predictable.<\/p>\n I actually want to start at the beginning. Andy Jassy and Scott Bessent might be smart guys. They obviously have very senior positions in our society. They\u2019re not experts in AI. How did we get to Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, relaying concerns about AI security research to Scott Bessent, who does not really oversee AI policy in any meaningful way, and that resulted in a 90-minute ultimatum delivered to a company whose CEO is absent? I don\u2019t think your politics should matter. <\/p>\n Either this is the worst security breach in history that the CEO of Amazon is going to call the treasury secretary, or this is just a bunch of guys who want to feel important. And I can\u2019t quite figure out which one it is.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a combination of a couple things. One, it\u2019s the fact that, like you mentioned, a lot of these guys are not experts in AI. Any jailbreak of this is obviously serious and worth considering, but I think that it\u2019s the type of thing that when you don\u2019t have direct knowledge of how these systems work, you\u2019re going to take a really black-and-white approach. These guys weren\u2019t experts.<\/p>\n Andy Jassy hears about this from his own researchers. His own researchers, by the way, who had been going back and forth with Anthropic for a couple days on this. They weren\u2019t calling the president about it. They\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s discuss this and figure out what we can do here.\u201d The researchers allegedly didn\u2019t seem to think it was the end of the world. They\u2019re just like, \u201cOh, we uncovered this, let\u2019s discuss.\u201d Anthropic was working on it and then Andy Jassy hears about it. He makes this call, everything hits the fan, which makes sense because if you are not an AI expert \u2014 and even if you are an AI expert, maybe you\u2019re not an expert on cybersecurity and how exactly these systems work, of course \u2014 so you\u2019re going to freak out.<\/p>\n It\u2019s understandable, but what is really strange is what happened after that. Make this phone call and the administration becomes aware, okay. But what I think is really weird is the 90-minute ultimatum and not giving Anthropic additional details when they said, \u201cHey, let\u2019s talk about it. Are you talking about the vulnerability we\u2019re already aware of or are you talking about something else? And can you just tell us about it so then we can talk about it?\u201d They said, \u201cNo, 90 minutes, do it or die.\u201d<\/p>\n And then making it so that no foreign national can access the system ever. That is what\u2019s really strange. Just the way all these cards fell is what everyone in the tech industry thinks is just really strange and it\u2019s indicative of, as you mentioned, the way that the Trump administration has been operating with tech. A lot of times it seems to be President Trump has one conversation and he\u2019s swayed from that most recent conversation. So he\u2019s been very anti-regulation, very pro-American AI and wanting to advance and export American AI, which is something that the commerce department is requesting.<\/p>\n The Trump admin has a [request for information] out right now<\/a>. They\u2019re all about exporting American AI and advancing and beating China, but then they do this thing that kneecaps everyone with no notice and could very well impact not just Anthropic, but also OpenAI, Google, every competitor in the space that also has what they call a semi-equivalent Mythos product.<\/p>\n It seems really disorganized and it\u2019s very interesting that this often ends up in a scramble with all these CEOs trying to race to kowtow to the Trump administration without really being grounded a lot of times in science or evidence that really matches what\u2019s going on. The level of freak out is not usually matching the evidence there.<\/p>\n Amazon is an investor in Anthropic. They\u2019re a major partner. Why did Andy Jassy kneecap his own investment in this way?<\/p>\n Well, Amazon typically does a lot of red teaming just normally. It\u2019s just part of their process. So it makes sense that this would have been tested and then unearthed. But what\u2019s interesting is why Andy Jassy called the Trump administration about it. I\u2019m not sure why.<\/p>\n Maybe it was a typical call that was already happening and he just happened to mention something offhand. Maybe he was calling them and saying, \u201cYeah, good thing you did the executive order because X, Y, Z.\u201d We don\u2019t know. But what is interesting \u2014 and I\u2019m glad you asked this \u2014 is that a lot of the sources I spoke with said that the stuff in the alleged jailbreak and in the Amazon white paper that\u2019s been circulating<\/a>, all of it could be achieved by OpenAI\u2019s GPT-5.5 and some other models.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the allegation, that these skills are not unique to Fable 5, the skills in question as part of the jailbreak. Mythos is obviously more powerful than Fable because it doesn\u2019t have safeguards, but when it comes to Fable and the problems that were brought to light by Amazon, it seems like those problems are not unique to Fable and that GPT-5.5 can also achieve those. A lot of people in the industry are asking, \u201cWhy Anthropic?\u201d<\/p>\n A real element of this is that it\u2019s always Anthropic. Anthropic has the most contentious relationship with the Trump administration. They were designated a supply chain risk by the Department of Defense<\/a>, but the posture here is different from the usual Anthropic drama.<\/p>\n Historically, Anthropic has said, \u201cWe don\u2019t want you to use our tools for X, Y, and Z.\u201d And the Trump administration has said, \u201cNo, we get to do whatever we want with the AI tools.\u201d That\u2019s why Anthropic was designated supply chain risk by the Department of Defense. They said, \u201cWe have some red lines about how we want to be used in the military context.\u201d Pete Hegseth said, \u201cNope, I\u2019m going to do whatever I want. You have to allow all lawful purposes\u201d \u2014 that\u2019s the line \u2014 \u201cand because you won\u2019t, you\u2019re a supply chain risk.\u201d There\u2019s now a lawsuit that\u2019s being argued about<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here it\u2019s the opposite. The Trump administration is worried that the model is too powerful and can be used for too many things, and Anthropic seems to think that that belief is overblown, that the administration is overplaying a thing that they can fix. They just need the time to do it and some rigor and conversation about how effective their fix is.<\/p>\n How do you put that together? On the one hand, the Trump administration is anti-AI regulatory efforts. On the one hand, they say, \u201cWe get to do whatever we want with the models, make them as powerful as you can.\u201d And then here the model is too powerful and has to be pulled before any foreign national can even look at it.<\/p>\n It really just speaks to the fact that the administration is trusting these companies to tell it what it should be doing. We\u2019ve seen that a bunch with any regulation that has happened or has become voluntary. Lots of drafts have been adjusted after the Trump administration talks to AI companies. They already don\u2019t like Anthropic. There\u2019s already a big trust breakdown between the two from the supply chain risk situation, from the lawsuit, from drawing red lines.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t imagine that this exact situation would have played out if this had been a competitor. OpenAI has a Mythos semi-equivalent model of its own. Again, no company is really saying theirs is as good as Mythos, but they say it\u2019s pretty good. The freakout would have still happened, but I cannot imagine the rest of it would have played out the way it has. The Trump admin would have given them more time. They would have had more of a conversation and I don\u2019t think they would have made this foreign nationals rule that has sent shockwaves through the whole industry and the world.<\/p>\n One of the sources I spoke with said that he already knew that backup contracts were being signed with non-US companies right now. Open weight models were being deployed on alternative hardware arrangements because now companies everywhere are saying, \u201cOh wow, we\u2019ve got to make political risk part of our business plan now. We don\u2019t really know what\u2019s going to happen with American AI. Let\u2019s make some backup plans here,\u201d which is not good for the industry. It\u2019s just interesting that the Trump administration is so afraid of China overtaking us, yet they\u2019re willing to kneecap one of their champions, as it were, in the industry.<\/p>\n But I also think it\u2019s interesting that the reasoning from the Trump administration that\u2019s been coming out day by day seems to differ. Every day they seem to have a new excuse or part of the conversation that\u2019s coming to light. First they say, \u201cOh, well, what if China had access?\u201c<\/a> A source I spoke with said that\u2019s a rumor from a few weeks ago, from way before Fable 5 or Mythos 5 came out and that it was referencing a Chinese telecom company that the administration had previously approved to have access to Mythos Preview and that when the administration said, \u201cOh, actually, you know what? We changed our mind. Let\u2019s take them off,\u201d Anthropic immediately took them off and revoked that access. That\u2019s an old rumor.<\/p>\n We\u2019re also seeing the executive order explanation, where rumors have come to light that Anthropic wasn\u2019t complying with the Trump administration\u2019s executive order<\/a>. Well, that executive order hasn\u2019t gone into effect yet. He only signed it on June 2nd. It\u2019s two weeks ago. It takes 60 days for them to figure out which models are going to be covered under it. There is a voluntary partnership with a 30-day pre-release review. It\u2019s voluntary.<\/p>\n It\u2019s funny because I\u2019m not saying Anthropic\u2019s totally in the right here at all. But it\u2019s just interesting because in this situation, there\u2019s so much misdirection and scrambling and just weirdness that it\u2019s rare that you see me feeling bad for an AI company. It really is. I am not like, \u201cOh yeah, they\u2019re doing great.\u201d All AI companies have their own issues, but in this one case, I\u2019m saying, \u201cWow, I really don\u2019t know if this would have happened to OpenAI or another competitor, after all the drama Anthropic\u2019s been going through with the Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n We know the Trump admin can be petty and I think they would\u2019ve freaked out for any company that was under this situation, but I can\u2019t see it playing out the exact same way with a competitor.<\/p>\n Is it just as simple as Dario Amodei doesn\u2019t go to the White House? He doesn\u2019t give Trump gifts? I mean, Sam Altman does press conferences with Donald Trump. Sundar Pichai attended the inauguration.<\/p>\n Zuckerberg was at the UFC fight.<\/p>\n [Laughs] Notable AI winner Mark Zuckerberg was at the UFC fight trying to buy his way into success. Is it just as simple as there\u2019s a personality clash here?<\/p>\n That\u2019s the way it\u2019s been perceived by some reports. That\u2019s definitely part of it. Some reports have said Dario doesn\u2019t know how to talk to the administration and that he doesn\u2019t kowtow as much. He doesn\u2019t know how to play the game. That\u2019s part of it.<\/p>\n The other part of it is that the Trump administration isn\u2019t quite sure how they\u2019re going to regulate AI and President Trump is being pulled in different directions. Sometimes he feels like it needs to be more regulated. Sometimes he thinks it needs to be less. If he\u2019s talking to an AI CEO, it seems like he\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, you know what? I trust them. We\u2019re good. Let them go ahead. We got to beat China.\u201d<\/p>\n In other cases, he sees that the public is going through a pretty anti-AI era right now. There\u2019s a rise in AI populism and he\u2019s saying, \u201cOh, well, actually the everyman doesn\u2019t like AI. Maybe I should regulate it.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s something we\u2019ve seen with the administration a bunch over the past however many years, but now it\u2019s being represented in AI regulation. It\u2019s just there\u2019s not really a rhyme or reason right now. I don\u2019t think that Anthropic\u2019s communications with the administration help. If you don\u2019t take their call the second they call, if you\u2019re not flying to the White House to have dinner, it probably hurts your relationship a little bit in a presidency that seems to be pretty relationship-based a lot of the time.<\/p>\n I would contrast that with the previous administration, which was almost devoid of personality. The Biden administration, notable for a lack of personality and people, was very technocratic and very rules based in a way that I think people often thought was bloodless.<\/p>\n But the Biden administration did put forward an executive order that had things like transparency reviews and research requirements for the frontier models. Trump came into office, and he wiped all that out<\/a>. He said, \u201cWe\u2019re not going to regulate these companies.\u201d And now it seems like we\u2019re just headed back there.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to put out an ultra-powerful model, the administration wants control of it. Certainly they will use the bluntest instrument they have in the form of export controls, but we\u2019re going to get back to a more fine-grained, more rigorous approach to how these models are deployed and used and who gets to use them. Was it a mistake to wipe out the Biden framework? Are we headed back to that framework? Where do we think this goes now?<\/p>\n I could see us going back there because I interviewed a ton of people in the industry at the time, ranging across a ton of different viewpoints, and most of them believed that the Biden era executive order wasn\u2019t quite enough. Some people thought it was a good first step and that\u2019s why I could see us going back there because it wasn\u2019t seen as being extremely aggressive.<\/p>\n If anything, it was seen as being a good first step in the direction, but really just one rung on the ladder. That\u2019s why I could see the current administration going back there because it wasn\u2019t that far. I will say AI companies will lobby against even that little step.<\/p>\n They did. They were pretty mad about it. <\/p>\n They did. They did deeply. But from the executive order we just saw, I could see it going back there, but a little more voluntary, which, again, all these things usually get watered down. It\u2019s like they come out swinging and then they talk to some AI CEOs and they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, okay, let\u2019s roll it back a little bit.\u201d So who knows, honestly.<\/p>\n But the reason I became an AI reporter is because I felt like there was no real regulation in the space, and this was even before ChatGPT. Journalism is a way to shine a light on what\u2019s going on in the industry. Still, six years later, we\u2019re not seeing a lot of regulation and any that has happened got rolled back. Maybe we\u2019ll go back in that direction. I do see us going somewhere there, but maybe not even as much as that first rung.<\/p>\n It almost feels like the industry needs to push for a more considered regulatory approach, right? They need to say, \u201cThis is chaos. This can\u2019t be how we operate. Every new model can\u2019t be forced to contend with panicked phone calls on the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n What kind of system would you build if you wanted a more rigorous review process here? Is it that they just submit their models to the government and the government says what\u2019s dangerous and not? Is it more industry-based? What are the solutions being proposed?<\/p>\n That\u2019s a good question. There haven\u2019t been a lot of really robust solutions proposed recently because of this current administration. They\u2019ve had a really light touch approach to regulation so no one\u2019s really surfacing those. Now that that might be changing, we\u2019ll see more robust frameworks proposed.<\/p>\n I just hope that they\u2019re not voluntary. AI companies already do a lot of voluntary disclosure. If you\u2019re going to regulate, do it. There are a lot of different opinions on how light touch or heavy touch regulation should be, but I do think that voluntary frameworks are pretty watered down. You know what I mean? We already have those.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s next? It\u2019s important to remember how the general public feels because this is who AI is really affecting at the end of the day. There\u2019s a rise in anti-AI populism and the fact that people are upset<\/a>. There are data center protests going on everywhere. People are even, in extreme cases, attacking AI CEO\u2019s homes, or at least attempting to. There is a lot of disquiet here and people feel like they\u2019re getting replaced. They feel like their jobs are getting replaced. I was listening to a Seattle city council hearing recently and a lot of AI engineers were testifying saying that they got laid off because of AI and they were engineers.<\/p>\n Both AI leaders and the government often are pretty distanced from what the general public is feeling about this technology and it\u2019s important to note. We\u2019ll see how that impacts, if at all, regulation that comes out. I don\u2019t have high hopes for a lot of regulation under this administration because they can be really sway-ey. They have dinner one time and then things might shift a little bit. To be fair, many politicians are that way, but we\u2019ll see. Maybe after this executive order\u2019s 60 days are up, we\u2019ll see some changes that surprise me.<\/p>\n One of the weirder aspects of this is that Anthropic itself is the company that most pushes for regulation, that most sounds the alarm, is the most doomer-ish of all the companies. Jack Clark, one of the co-founders of Anthropic, recently put out research and his conclusion<\/a> was that, \u201cWe believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology.\u201d<\/p>\n Anthropic is way on the front line of saying, \u201cOh, we might kill everyone. Boy, we should stop this.\u201d But they\u2019re also on the front line of model capability. By all accounts, Mythos is the most powerful model that exists today. Is Anthropic just getting itself in trouble? Is this just a marketing strategy for them that\u2019s backfiring?<\/p>\n It\u2019s a combination. The marketing speak is definitely backfiring. If you say something\u2019s that dangerous and then a researcher unearths something that maybe wasn\u2019t quite meant to be possible, then yeah, people are going to freak out. That\u2019s why I can see the first thing happening to anyone. I can\u2019t see the rest of it the way that the cards fell.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s partly there, it came back to haunt them. It was a little bit on them in terms of the hype, but I also think that they are trying to be honest in some ways about the risk that this technology can pose. And it would be really bad if a system that can flag high level vulnerabilities in our global infrastructure that we use, like your bank system or a government website, could just be used by bad actors. If it fell into the wrong hands, yeah, that\u2019s pretty bad.<\/p>\n It comes down to communication. It\u2019s important to talk about the risks and not downplay them, but also if you do that and then you make a mistake or something unexpected happens, you have to deal with the consequences. There\u2019s a lot to unpack there, for sure. I also think that a lot of companies do downplay risks of different systems. We\u2019ve seen a bunch of AI CEOs, including Anthropic\u2019s, talk about how jobs aren\u2019t all going to be replaced<\/a>, saying it\u2019s going to be okay.<\/p>\n I always take all this stuff with a huge grain of salt. At the end of the day, whatever AI company you\u2019re talking about, whether it\u2019s Anthropic or another one, they all have the incentives to turn a profit and make money at all costs \u2014 especially if they become a public company, which they are about to. People like to paint Anthropic one way and other competitors another, but they\u2019re all pursuing the same goal. They just are doing it a little bit differently.<\/p>\n Is there a version of this where we just treat AI like military technology from the jump, and the public gets a watered down version of the military technology? Because that seems to be the risk profile that the Trump administration is operating within. Like this is fundamentally offensive technology. We can deploy it against our enemies. We can use it to attack the banks. Everyone is worried about the security implications here.<\/p>\n Is there a world in which we just start there and then say, \u201cTo deploy to the public, to consumers, you have to cut this way down. We\u2019re not going to sell F22s to the public, but we can sell Ford Raptors to the public.\u201d There\u2019s some version of this, right? Where the technology gets cut way down for the public with the bleeding edge just fundamentally for the military.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what we\u2019ve seen a lot for decades and it\u2019s starting to happen now with Mythos. Fable is the watered-down version and enterprise and governments have access to the more powerful version. There are a lot of different opinions on that. One of OpenAI\u2019s biggest marketing pushes right now is, \u201cOh, Anthropic wants the most powerful AI to only be in the hands of the elites and we want to bring it to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n So there are a bunch of different marketing pushes right now. Everyone\u2019s just using everything to their advantage to paint their competitors badly, Anthropic included. The race is just heating up so intensely that the AI companies at the forefront are doing anything they can to win at all costs. For some, it\u2019s because they think that they are the best and most moral winner, which can always be a big issue as we\u2019ve seen in every sci-fi or fantasy movie. The for-the-greater-good philosophy is typically used by the villain in the story.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a big race happening right now and I totally agree with Jack Clark that it might be good to slow things down a bit. If everyone could agree \u2014 which is a huge long shot and especially it\u2019d be very difficult to get other countries to agree as well. But we are definitely building the technology much faster than we can think about the implications of it and we have been for a long time.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s the first episode of Decoder where Dario Amodei was directly compared to Thanos, so that\u2019s great.<\/p>\n [Laughs] To be fair, I was thinking about a villain from Harry Potter when I said that \u2014 Grindelwald.<\/p>\n Oh my gosh. All right. Well, Dario, if you want to come on and address these allegations, you\u2019re more than welcome.<\/p>\n I also have to say, it\u2019s not just Dario. All the AI CEOs are saying that, all of them. It\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n Where does this end? What are the next steps here? There are meetings happening this week. People are going to be hearing this on Thursday. There\u2019s a chance Anthropic is just back on the market. There\u2019s a chance it\u2019s not. But after this, it seems like everybody wants a process. Where do you think this ends?<\/p>\n It\u2019s very difficult to predict how this administration is going to act, as we saw with the supply chain risk situation. Even though a lot of government agencies were big fans of Claude, I thought that that was going to be rolled back eventually, but they just signed deals with seven other companies and said, \u201cOkay, we\u2019re good. Even if you guys were fans of Claude, whatever, here are seven other options for you.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess right now. I do think that the foreign nationals thing is going to be rolled back. I just can\u2019t imagine that after all the hubbub that the administration has created about how American AI has to win, the Hegseth memo from January 9th<\/a> arguing speed at all costs. I just think this administration is so focused on winning in AI that there\u2019s no way they\u2019re going to continue with that rule. I could see this becoming a personality game over the next few days. Anthropic compromises in some way, they try to communicate better. And then in a couple of days this gets rolled back.<\/p>\n But then I\u2019ve seen some rumors that the Trump administration is trying to acquire a stake in Anthropic and OpenAI<\/a>, an ownership stake. So there could be a lot of different \u201cresolutions\u201d to that here. We\u2019ll see, but I definitely can\u2019t foresee this as it exists right now continuing for more than a couple of days. The industry is just aghast at this situation.<\/p>\n Hayden, we\u2019re going to obviously have to have you back very soon as this comes to a close. Thank you so much for being on Decoder.<\/p>\n Questions or comments? Hit us up at decoder@theverge.com. 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