On June 12, the White House issued an order that forced Anthropic, the San Francisco‑based AI firm, to block foreign access to its two newest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. The models had debuted only three days earlier, with Anthropic touting Fable 5 as the most capable system it had ever released publicly and describing Mythos 5 as a sibling model with fewer safeguards in certain areas.
Government officials acted after receiving reports that researchers, in conversations with Amazon, had identified ways to coax Fable 5 into providing information that could facilitate cyberattacks. In response, Anthropic shut down both models for all customers, stating, “We are complying with the government’s legal directive and are removing access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users. However, we disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people.”
The directive also required Anthropic to block access for foreign nationals, a measure that extended to the company’s own employees abroad. The abrupt shutdown highlighted the growing influence of U.S. policy on the availability of frontier AI technologies.
International fallout and calls for tech sovereignty
European leaders reacted sharply. In the United Kingdom, AI and online safety minister Kanishka Narayan used the incident to argue that Britain must build its own AI capacity, framing the issue as a matter of national security. “We treat every other threat to our sovereignty with deadly seriousness, but we haven’t learned to treat this one in the same way,” she said.
France’s former prime minister Gabriel Attal described the shutdown as the opening salvo of an “AI war,” warning that France’s reliance on foreign models left it vulnerable. He likened the restriction to a strategic chokepoint, echoing broader European concerns about dependence on U.S. and Chinese technology.
Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, echoed the sentiment, noting that the episode illustrates the risk of over‑reliance on a single provider for critical AI tools. “The situation we’re in collectively right now with Mythos and Fable is something that can happen with overreliance on certain models,” he said.
U.S. officials reportedly linked the decision to a suspicion that a group tied to China had accessed the models, adding a geopolitical dimension to the security concerns. The episode underscores how quickly AI capabilities can become entangled in international rivalries.
While the United States remains the dominant source of frontier AI, the shutdown has accelerated discussions about domestic alternatives. Nations such as France, Canada, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates are pursuing narrower, region‑focused models, while open‑source initiatives aim to democratize capabilities that rival proprietary systems.
Anthropic has not indicated when, if ever, it will restore Fable 5 and Mythos 5. The company’s compliance with the order, coupled with its public disagreement, leaves the future of its flagship models uncertain and highlights the fragile nature of global access to cutting‑edge AI.
Este artigo foi escrito com a assistência de IA.
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