Anthropic Fights White House Ban on 'Mythos' & 'Fable' AI

Top Anthropic staffers have rushed to Washington D.C. to reverse a White House crackdown on their "Mythos" and "Fable" AI models. Senior technical staff traveled over the weekend to meet with White House officials. The Trump administration placed export controls on these models last week. Anthropic has since pulled them offline entirely, stating it was the only way to ensure compliance, though the company disagrees with the White House's action. A person close to Anthropic says the company is committed to working with the administration to resolve the dispute. The White House implemented these controls after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy provided intel that the models' guardrails could be bypassed, threatening national security. Other companies also raised concerns about "Fable." Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and White House cyber director Sean Cairncross are involved in discussions. However, some cybersecurity officials are defending Anthropic, arguing the "jailbreak" technique isn't unique to Fable and can be replicated on other AI models, including GPT-5.5 and Chinese models. Over 40 signatories, including executives from Adobe and Zoom, sent a letter to Lutnick and Cairncross, claiming the action harms American AI leadership. This situation highlights ongoing tensions between AI developers and government oversight regarding national security.