White House suspects China-linked group may have accessed Anthropic’s powerful AI model Mythos
According to a Semafor report, the White House’s decision to impose export restrictions on Anthropic’s Mythos was partly driven by fears that a China-linked group had accessed the model.
The White House reportedly suspects that a group linked to China may have gained access to Anthropic’s powerful AI model Mythos, contributing to the decision to impose export restrictions on the technology, according to a new report from Semafor.
The White House has not confirmed the report. In a post on X, Trump advisor David Sacks did not mention China but instead focused on the alleged ability to jailbreak Mythos and its sibling model Fable, which Anthropic has denied.
An Anthropic spokesperson told Semafor that the government did not bring up China during discussions about export controls. The company itself has not responded to requests for comment.
If the Chinese government actually had access to Mythos 5 or Fable 5, it would pose a serious national security risk. The government could attempt to reverse-engineer the model through distillation, a process where a “student” AI is trained on a more advanced model to replicate its behavior.
This would not be the first embarrassing breach of Anthropic’s most powerful model. The company has said Mythos is too dangerous and powerful for public consumption, but a Discord group reportedly had access for two weeks before Anthropic discovered the breach and cut off access.
