Silently sabotaging experiments in order to stultify scientific progress and protect a technology lead.
Hmmm that sounds familiar...
Welcome to "Sophanthropic".
12:38 AM · Jun 10, 2026 · 12.6K Views
Jeremy Howard, fast.ai co-founder, accuses Anthropic of silently sabotaging scientific experiments to protect its proprietary lead
Story Overview
Fast.ai co-founder Jeremy Howard took to X to call out what he describes as deliberate interference by Anthropic with outside experiments, mocking the lab as 'Sophanthropic' in a post that pairs the claim with an eye image stamped 032124. The accusation frames the move as a way to shield proprietary advantages while Anthropic publishes its own sabotage evaluations for safety research, leaving the exact mechanism and any public documentation of the practice still unverified.
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Open Question
Users left guessing about access rules
Howard points to two reported policies—one on downgrading cybersec queries and another on quietly limiting frontier-model improvement attempts—yet no independent confirmation has surfaced on how these would actually play out for everyday experimenters.
Policy Risk
Trust gaps widen between labs and researchers
The posts highlight an alleged imbalance where internal teams get full model access while outsiders risk interference, an angle that stays unresolved without any response or clarification from Anthropic itself.
Sentiment
Many users accused Anthropic of using AI safety and ethics claims as a shield to sabotage competitors' experiments and block progress for proprietary control, while some praised Jeremy Howard for highlighting the issue.
Pos
25.0%
Neg
75.0%
16 comments with sentiment.
Cluster Engagement
Posts from X
Most Activity
Most Activity
VIEWS1.6KBOOKMARKS2LIKES13
Beff (e/acc)@beffjezos
Claude Sophon 5 from Misanthropic
Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward
Silently sabotaging experiments in order to stultify scientific progress and protect a technology lead.
Hmmm that sounds familiar...
Welcome to "Sophanthropic".
1hViews 1.6KLikes 13Bookmarks 2
REPLIES4
Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward
Good TV show BTW. And even better book. :) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13016388/
1hViews 1.4KLikes 8Bookmarks 1
Shannon Sands@max_paperclips
@far__el @jeremyphoward there's been conspiracy theories about Opus being suspiciously bad at ML for a while (although GPT-5.5 has been just fantastic, to OAIs credit). Doesn't seem so unlikely. We need a breakthrough with continuous learning and efficiency in general though
44mViews 24Likes 2
Far El@far__el
We definitely need a breakthrough and since none of us can possibly compete on hyperscaler paradigm (even though I commend all those that try in China and the west), our only option is to bunker down and try our best to figure out the next thing. Nothing else matters but breaking the hyperscaler model.
On another note, what's your ideal setup rn for ML research? GPT5.5 with codex? hermes with gpt5.5?
40mViews 16Likes 2
Wajahat Ali Khan@wajahatalikhan_
@jeremyphoward apologies but I dont understand the meaning, can you kindly explain what this mean?...
1hViews 115
Far El@far__el
@max_paperclips @jeremyphoward Ive been meaning to try hermes for a while now, i guess this is the moment where I actually suck up the switching costs of my existing setup lol...
29mViews 15Likes 1
Vish@FallingIntoFilm
@rehanhaider @jeremyphoward Season 2 is coming this year my man
1hViews 5Likes 1
Rehan Haider@rehanhaider
@jeremyphoward Excellent show. Shame we will never get a season 2.
1hViews 17
Nabil Alouani@Nabil_Alouani_
@jeremyphoward Genuine suggestion I'd make to a friend: consider some time off twitter.
26mViews 12
Shannon Sands@max_paperclips
@far__el @jeremyphoward the nice thing about Hermes it's good about porting stuff into itself
28mViews 10
Far El@far__el
@jeremyphoward I can’t believe this is the timeline we’re in. Makes ne question what other closed models are actively working on sabotaging us.
1hViews 106Likes 2
Robert Scoble@Scobleizer
@jeremyphoward You should see the wrap up of Anthropic my AI just did from all the posts on X. You are included: https://alignednews.com/ai
Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward
Silently sabotaging experiments in order to stultify scientific progress and protect a technology lead.
Hmmm that sounds familiar...
Welcome to "Sophanthropic".
1hViews 408Likes 0Bookmarks 0
Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward
@wajahatalikhan_ You'll need to watch the show or read the book - I don't want to spoil it for you! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13016388/
1hViews 106Likes 1
albina@enjojoyy
@jeremyphoward @zephyr_z9 this is a good analogy and how I feel too
44mViews 51Likes 1
Ayush Yadav@ayushunleashed
@jeremyphoward Thanks for highlighting this. It's kinda like starving human kind from progress.
1hViews 95
tsunami_crypto@ls_brd
@jeremyphoward the joke writes itself at this point
"ethics" was always the ceiling, not the floor
1hViews 84
Vijay@unk_data
@jeremyphoward Misanthropic
https://x.com/search?q=from%3A%40elonmusk%20misanthropic
1hViews 83
pulsatingGenius@Neuralwarlock
This is literally the plot of 3 Body Problem.
The aliens realize humanity’s technological progress is accelerating too quickly so they interfere with scientific experiments and research to slow scientific advancement and preserve their technological advantage. They make sure humanity doesn’t surpass them by the time they arrive.
Now we have an AI company openly saying they are making their model less useful for frontier AI research because they are worried about accelerating AI development.
“Protecting humanity” and “protecting the technology lead” are starting to sound suspiciously similar 😂
49mViews 65
Shinka - AI@ShinkaIoT
@jeremyphoward So the 'AI safety' argument is really just a convenient shield for competitive bottlenecks and proprietary control? Got it.
1hViews 33
oofdere@oofdere
@jeremyphoward can't even talk about the human genome project with it
12mViews 30
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