/Tech12h ago

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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Original post
Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward#42inTech

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 · 46.4K Views
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

Positive users praised Jeremy Howard for highlighting Anthropic's alleged sabotage of experiments, while negative users viewed AI safety claims as a pretext for monopoly and anti-competitive behavior.

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50.0%
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19 comments with sentiment.
Cluster Engagement
Posts from X
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VIEWS4.9KBOOKMARKS7REPLIES6
Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward

Good TV show BTW. And even better book. :) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13016388/

12hViews 4.9KLikes 41Bookmarks 7
LIKES44RETWEETS3
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".

12hViews 3.7KLikes 44Bookmarks 4
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.

12hViews 591Likes 14Bookmarks 1

@jeremyphoward Don't worry, unlike the trisolarians, Anthropic has no plans of subjugating the human race and creating a permanent underclass.

Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward

Silently sabotaging experiments in order to stultify scientific progress and protect a technology lead.

Hmmm that sounds familiar...

Welcome to "Sophanthropic".

7hViews 1.5KLikes 17Bookmarks 0
ThePrimeagen@ThePrimeagen

@jeremyphoward Jeremy I have had great respect for you and everything you do. I really appreciate your posts, but this is a bridge too far.

the tv show as good?

unsubscribe reported called 911

4hViews 329Likes 16

Why do you keep saying "silently sabotaging"? This is not what the system report implies at all

They only say they are reducing model effectiveness. So probably it's just performing closer to Opus 4.8 than Mythos in this instance

Sabotaging would mean intentionally introducing bugs etc

Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward

Silently sabotaging experiments in order to stultify scientific progress and protect a technology lead.

Hmmm that sounds familiar...

Welcome to "Sophanthropic".

10hViews 2.1KLikes 1Bookmarks 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

11hViews 62Likes 8Bookmarks 1
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?

11hViews 39Likes 4Bookmarks 1
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 😂

11hViews 287Likes 5Bookmarks 1
nick sorrell@sorrellio

@BlackHC @jeremyphoward You clearly don’t want to engage in a good faith debate on this in spite of the evidence presented by Anthropic themselves.

10hViews 53Likes 6
Wajahat Ali Khan@wajahatalikhan_

@jeremyphoward apologies but I dont understand the meaning, can you kindly explain what this mean?...

12hViews 818
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/

12hViews 816Likes 8
Rey@ReyArtAge

@ThePrimeagen @jeremyphoward it was good man, show me better science fiction ? Please i'm waiting...

4hViews 98
Shannon Sands@max_paperclips

@far__el @jeremyphoward Hermes with GPT-5.5, since I can set it up with profiles, and create workflows with other models to handle specific tasks (loops of different reviewers and whatnot). Codex is a good fallback (I break my Hermes pretty often lmao)

11hViews 29Likes 3
Shannon Sands@max_paperclips

@far__el @jeremyphoward the nice thing about Hermes it's good about porting stuff into itself

11hViews 28Likes 3
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...

11hViews 28Likes 3
nick sorrell@sorrellio

@BlackHC @jeremyphoward Prompt modification not visible to the user could count as that.

10hViews 68Likes 2
Ariel@redtachyon

@BlackHC @jeremyphoward Let's say someone got access to your codex/claude code/whatever AI account, and made it so that in some cases, instead of using <selected model>, it uses GPT 3.5.

Would that count as sabotage?

6hViews 96Likes 1
Vijay@unk_data

@jeremyphoward Misanthropic

https://x.com/search?q=from%3A%40elonmusk%20misanthropic

12hViews 258
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".

11hViews 774Likes 3Bookmarks 0
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