US Orders Anthropic to Shut Down Flagship AI Models for All Foreign Users Over Security Fears

Anthropic has shut down access to its flagship Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 models after receiving an emergency export control order from the United States government. The directive prohibits any foreign national from using the systems, including Anthropic staff who are not US citizens, and applies regardless of location.

The company said the breadth of the order effectively required it to disable both models for all users. Anthropic noted that the restriction affects only Fable 5 and Mythos 5, with the remainder of its AI portfolio continuing to operate normally.

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Debating the Risks Posed by Advanced AI Models 

Officials have not publicly outlined the specific national security risks behind the decision. Anthropic said it understands the concern relates to an alleged jailbreak method capable of bypassing protections built into Fable 5. Following an internal review, the company said the demonstrated technique exposed only a small number of previously known vulnerabilities.

According to Anthropic, the vulnerabilities identified through the technique were relatively simple and could also be discovered by other publicly available AI models without circumventing safeguards. The company stated that the evidence presented by authorities concerns a limited jailbreak scenario involving analysis of a specific codebase and the identification of software flaws. It also said similar capabilities are already available through competing models, including OpenAI’s GPT-5.5.

Although Anthropic is complying with the directive, it maintains that recalling a commercially deployed model over a narrow potential jailbreak is unwarranted. The company warned that adopting such an approach across the industry could impede future frontier AI releases and said it is working to restore customer access.

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