China Might Have Gained Access to Mythos

A recent report highlights that the White House’s choice to implement export restrictions on Anthropic’s Mythos stems partly from concerns about potential access by a group associated with China. If the Chinese government were to gain access to Mythos 5 or Fable 5, it could pose a significant national security threat. There’s also the possibility that they could try to reverse engineer the model using a technique called distillation, where a “student” AI learns to mimic a more advanced model’s behavior.

While the White House has not confirmed these claims, a post on X by a Trump adviser did not mention China at all. Instead, the focus was on the alleged ability to jailbreak Fable and Mythos, a claim that Anthropic has denied. Anthropic has yet to respond to requests for comment, but a spokesperson indicated that discussions about export controls did not involve China.

If it turns out that the Chinese government accessed Mythos, it wouldn’t be the first time Anthropic faced a significant security issue with its most advanced model. The company has previously stated that Mythos is too powerful and risky for public use, yet a Discord group reportedly had access for two weeks before Anthropic identified the breach and revoked access.