I think both Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 get approved for general release next week, and for use outside of the United States as well. But people should remember this moment and remember this feeling, because it is almost inevitable that we eventually reach a point where approval does not arrive.
Capitalism is going to tip the scales this time. I doubt they will approve one model and not the other, because doing so would be seen as incredibly anti-competitive. Fable and GPT-5.6 will probably receive the same clearance, probably on the same day. I also doubt they want to restrict sales outside the US, because that would be seen as anti-business and would trigger a major backlash against American closed-source AI. The rumblings of which you can already hear today. There is also a plan now taking shape on both the US left and right to create some version of an AI public wealth fund that pays a dividend directly to American citizens. That fund needs to be fed by the global sale of the big labs top models to people outside the US. So I think there will be no freeze on their use outside the United States this time.
The other reason is that allowing this will make people happy, and it will soften the fact that Mythos, as was announced yesterday, is available only to a vetted group of US agencies and companies. I do not think that this basic structure will change from here on out. Mythos may eventually be made available to certain allies, but only after the US government, its agencies, and then some chosen American companies have access to Mythos-2, Sol-2, or whatever the new uber-model turns out to be.
I do not think this gap ever closes again, not even for allies. And that means the US will increasingly possess an intelligence advantage that touches almost everything: voting, markets, corporations, academia, infrastructure, and the internal operations of foreign states. Having Mythos-n will always be trumped by whoever has Mythos-n+1. Anthropic themselves have said within nine months Mythos will look like a toy. That advantage, standing at the top of this tower, is too large to give up voluntarily. It also means that many things will become suspect. People will see shadows everywhere. Barring espionage, a deliberate leak, or the emergence of a non-US competitor at the top end of the scale, this structure will persist for some time. The public fight is about access to models. But the real fight is about access to the future. And from this point forward, whoever holds this power will also become increasingly capable of keeping it for themselves.
