AI Judge changed title after evaluation, original title: "White House opposes Anthropic’s Mythos expansion to 120 companies"
White House blocks Anthropic from expanding access to Mythos AI model beyond roughly 50 approved companies and organizations to 120. Officials cite insufficient compute for private-sector demand and government needs plus national security risks from model's vulnerability exploitation capabilities including cyberattacks and online disruptions. Decision prioritizes government compute and halts broader preview rollout.
The White House is against a proposal from Anthropic to more than double the number of groups with access to Mythos, citing both security concerns and the belief that expanding the program would mean less available use of Mythos for government agencies that already have access.
A small mix of sentiments shows some support for the White House opposing Anthropic's AI expansion plan, countered by criticism of government favoritism toward OpenAI and arbitrary interventions. Reactions focus on pe... A small number of replies show positive support for the researcher advocating wider access to Anthropic's Mythos and negative concern ov...
Mythos seems to be a very capable model based on available information, but it is not a cybersecurity model - it is an advanced general purpose model that happens to be good at cyber because it is good at a bunch of things. Anthropic stated that they were worried about cybersecurity risk, and their efforts mean it is a restricted model with lots of government attention.
OpenAI and Google will pass the same threshold soon (and may already have with unreleased models). and the question is whether they are as worried about cybersecurity risks, or whether they think their guardrails will hold. Currently, the degree to which models have cyberrisk is entirely self-reported and not regulated. That means that OpenAI and Google could release Mythos-class models if they want, by assessing the risk differently and making different decisions.
Does that mean Anthropic is at a disadvantage because it can't release its equivalent model? Will OpenAI and Google also be somehow restricted from releasing their Mythos competitor. It all seems pretty unclear right now.
The White House blocked Anthropic from expanding Mythos access beyond ~50 organizations to ~120.
Not because the model is too dangerous. Because the government wants priority. Officials literally worried more customers would hamper their own ability to use it.
Frontier AI just became a rationed strategic asset.
I worry deeply already about companies controlling access to very powerful AI, which will come in a soft form with very expensive subscriptions.
This is a step further, with the government confusingly exerting control without clear explanation.
This control of AI can create massive dystopian societies. It’ll rapidly lead to concentration of power.
Having open models follow closely in capabilities is a great way to minimize political and power games here.
The White House is against a proposal from Anthropic to more than double the number of groups with access to Mythos, citing both security concerns and the belief that expanding the program would mean less available use of Mythos for government agencies that already have access.
Never heard of something like this happening before, though anti-regulation people raised this *kind* of thing (government blocking deployment) as a nightmare scenario. Things are changing quickly
Exclusive: The White House opposes a plan from Anthropic to expand access to its powerful artificial-intelligence model Mythos https://on.wsj.com/4cHiUY5
There is a new AI policy memo on the way from the White House, which does explain some things. According to the report there will shortly be new rules for model deployment under national security. Agencies will be urged to use multiple providers rather than one. It will also state that any labs under contract with the DoD must agree to not interfere with the military's chain of command.
The White House is against a proposal from Anthropic to more than double the number of groups with access to Mythos, citing both security concerns and the belief that expanding the program would mean less available use of Mythos for government agencies that already have access.
Parsing the WSJ article carefully:
- Trump administration is opposing the broader roll-out of Mythos "because of concerns about security". The government is involved "because of national-security risks posed by the model".
- But also "some" White House officials are worried that Anthropic won't have enough compute to serve the model to the government if it expands access to the model to more private companies.
In other words, national security concerns are at the forefront, and so this is indeed the very first case (that we know of) of the USG restricting roll-out of a new AI model based on policy considerations.
The White House is against a proposal from Anthropic to more than double the number of groups with access to Mythos, citing both security concerns and the belief that expanding the program would mean less available use of Mythos for government agencies that already have access.
The White House reportedly “opposes a plan” by a private company, “complicating the rollout of an AI tool.” They’re worried Anthropic won’t have enough compute to serve the government. So the White House is “involved in the rollout.”
This is concerning precedent. I’m not super worried about the direct effects of this particular incident with Anthropic. They kind of leaned into this punch. In fact, they’ve been asking for this level of government involvement for years, though they’ve sought more formal processes.
But I am worried that, absent crystal clear criteria and congressional involvement, this “national security” justification could be deployed arbitrarily and informally to get the government “involved” in many future deployments of AI technology.
This is a good opportunity to remind people that it isn’t just complex regulatory regimes that favor connected incumbents. Arbitrary and informal government decision making can be even worse because it rewards the well-connected while shutting out everyone else.
American AI progress and continued dominance depends on fierce competition among companies to make customers happy. Our AI leadership will be undermined if labs focus instead on competing to make politicians happy.
Exclusive: The White House opposes a plan from Anthropic to expand access to its powerful artificial-intelligence model Mythos https://on.wsj.com/4cHiUY5
Assuming they have the compute, expanding access is good. What would be even better IMO is:
1. Simply making a restricted (conservative cyber refusal) Mythos generally available (with strong monitoring, possibly not serving with ZDR)
2. Having a program with clear objective criteria to allow verified defenders to access to the less restricted version.
Wide iterative deployment helps avoiding concentration of power as well as discovering issues early.
The White House is against a proposal from Anthropic to more than double the number of groups with access to Mythos, citing both security concerns and the belief that expanding the program would mean less available use of Mythos for government agencies that already have access.
Anthropic realized their sub dreams of being dommed by the govt
JUST IN: White House reportedly opposes Anthropic’s plan to expand preview access to Mythos over fears it lacks the compute to do so without affecting government use.
The White House should have absolutely no say in this.
The White House is against a proposal from Anthropic to more than double the number of groups with access to Mythos, citing both security concerns and the belief that expanding the program would mean less available use of Mythos for government agencies that already have access.
Anthropic’s products are an unreliable supply chain risk but also if they sell to other customers it might unacceptably lessen the governments ability to have it
The White House is against a proposal from Anthropic to more than double the number of groups with access to Mythos, citing both security concerns and the belief that expanding the program would mean less available use of Mythos for government agencies that already have access.
???
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The White House is against a proposal from Anthropic to more than double the number of groups with access to Mythos, citing both security concerns and the belief that expanding the program would mean less available use of Mythos for government agencies that already have access.
wow, that was an EXTREMELY sophisticated regulatory capture strategy
Exclusive: The White House opposes a plan from Anthropic to expand access to its powerful artificial-intelligence model Mythos https://on.wsj.com/4cHiUY5
for those keeping track at home, “only the government gets powerful AI” is how we get the nightmare timelines
???
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THEY ARE TRYING TO STEAL CLAUDE 😭
SITUATION UPDATE: Administration officials raised concerns with Anthropic about plans to expand Mythos preview, citing fears that expansion amid compute shortage could reduce government use, WSJ reports.
This follows a DoW decision to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/white-house-opposes-anthropics-plan-to-expand-access-to-mythos-model-dc281ab5?st=dfw523
The White House is against a proposal from Anthropic to more than double the number of groups with access to Mythos, citing both security concerns and the belief that expanding the program would mean less available use of Mythos for government agencies that already have access.
It's also very unclear what the logic is here, given that on many evals at least, GPT-5.5 is pretty similar and OAI is AFAIK not being stopped from giving it to many more customers than this, along with GPT-5.4-Cyber (evals unknown AFAIK).
Never heard of something like this happening before, though anti-regulation people raised this *kind* of thing (government blocking deployment) as a nightmare scenario. Things are changing quickly
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/white-house-opposes-anthropics-plan-to-expand-access-to-mythos-model-dc281ab5
The White House blocked Anthropic from expanding Mythos access beyond ~50 organizations to ~120.
Not because the model is too dangerous. Because the government wants priority. Officials literally worried more customers would hamper their own ability to use it.
Frontier AI just became a rationed strategic asset.
“The training wheels have come off on AI policy. The trial runs are over” @deanwball
Okay, jokes aside, my thoughts about the WSJ’s reporting that the White House is asking Anthropic not to disseminate Mythos any further:
1. Assuming the story is true, I suspect the White House is making the right call. But this is the opposite of a tenable strategy, like trying to erect a dam against a tsunami. There is no way to stop the diffusion of capabilities like Mythos within the next 6-18 months.
2. We should be clear that the government restricting the release of AI models is a type of licensing regime. It is an informal, highly improvised licensing regime, but a licensing regime nonetheless. This isn’t going to be the last such model we see of this capability tier, and cyber vulnerability discovery is very far from the only type of dangerous capability. If the government is going to insist on restricting frontier capabilities for the foreseeable future, it will need to formalize the rules for those restrictions—how long must you delay, what objective factors generate a “green light,” etc. I know this will feel even more regulatory to some, but the alternative is an unpredictable, inconsistent, improvisatory licensing system, and this is both bad for business and the rule of law.
3. I have been critical of the Trump admin for being TOO libertarian with regard to major AI risks. I stand by those criticisms. But I am also infinitely grateful that there will be people advising the President who truly do understand the risks of regulatory overreach, and fear them even more than I do. There wouldn’t have been in a hypothetical Biden/Harris administration. I wish them fortitude and luck.
4. A thing that would be better than an improvised licensing regime would be to bolster technical model and system safeguards. Imagine a version of Mythos that was just as capable, but had been specifically neutered in cyber vulnerability discovery. This a longstanding area of technical AI safety research! There are tradeoffs with this specific approach (as there all with all approaches), but the broader point is that bolstering technical safeguards would mean we could disseminate Mythos-level models more quickly than we can today.
5. If you think clearly about (4), you will understand that technical AI safety research can be profoundly accelerationist rather than evil, decelerationist, whatever other pejorative you have seen hurled at “AI safety.” This does not mean “all AI safety research is good,” but it does mean that technical safety work is an essential part of actually achieving AI takeoff while maintaining societal order.
6. I cannot emphasize enough how much the training wheels have come off on AI policy. The trial runs are over. Many of the heuristics people adopted during the training-wheel period will not be useful (“AI safety is decelerationist” is one of those heuristics, btw). If you want to contribute usefully to the cause of making AI go well, you will need to increase the IQ of your speech.
7. Dealing with risks of this kind should be nonpartisan and technocratic. Catastrophic risk mitigation is not the thing to negatively polarize on partisan lines, as some, especially on the accelerationist side, have been doing. Let’s have partisan fights about things like AI/labor—that’s healthy! But not catastrophic risk management, please.
Same article btw
I'm not nec. saying that this is the wrong decision in this case, don't have all the relevant context
But I do think people should worry a lot about power concentration in both companies and government:
