Following the U.S. requirement that Anthropic restrict the availability of its AI models Fable and Mythos to foreign nationals and those residing in the U.S., both models have been suspended from public access. TechCrunch commented that this incident is not merely a compliance adjustment by a single company, but could also serve as a real-world test of how the U.S. regulates cutting-edge AI.

The article states that Mythos has been treated as a high-risk cybersecurity model by Anthropic since its launch in April. Before the ban, only about 150 vetted businesses and government agencies were allowed to use it. Anthropic's original intention was to provide defenders with the tools to harden their software and services.

The ban was triggered by two things.

The initial trigger, according to reports, was Anthropic granting Mythos access to a South Korean telecommunications company through a limited partnership program. U.S. officials subsequently expressed concerns about potential Chinese ties to the company. Several media outlets identified the company as SK Telecom, but the company denied any connection to China.

Another factor relates to model security. Reports indicate that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned the US government that researchers had found a way to bypass Fable 5's security measures. Anthropic disagrees with the "jailbreak" analogy, stating that the issue is limited and has already been patched.

The article states that the U.S. Department of Commerce subsequently issued an export control order. According to some accounts, Anthropic began urgently restricting access to related products within approximately 90 minutes of receiving the notification.

Historically, similar regulations have not been successful.

TechCrunch argues that the US government has repeatedly attempted to restrict the proliferation of critical cyber technologies through export controls, but the results have been inconsistent. The article mentions that in the 1990s, the US considered encryption software a sensitive technology and launched a criminal investigation into PGP developer Phil Zimmermann for allegedly violating arms export controls.

Zimmermann subsequently released the PGP source code in printed form, sparking the controversy later known as the "CryptoWars." Ultimately, the investigation was dropped. The article argues that this outcome actually paved the way for the widespread adoption of end-to-end encryption technology, with related algorithms later being widely used in products such as Signal and WhatsApp.

Spyware controls have also failed multiple times.

The article also mentions that in the early 2010s, researchers began discovering that Western-made spyware was being used to suppress dissidents in the Middle East. Subsequently, many countries pushed to expand the scope of the Wassenaar Arrangement, including surveillance and hacking software in the export restrictions on dual-use technologies.

However, the article argues that this mechanism has two problems: first, not all countries participate, for example, Israel is not included in the arrangement; second, even among participating countries, the level of implementation varies. The report cites the example of Italy granting export licenses to Hacking Team, despite the company having sold tools to repressive governments.

The article also mentions that some spyware companies relocate their operations to less regulated regions to circumvent restrictions. Although the German investigation into FinFisher ultimately led to the company's closure in 2022, these individual cases have not altered the overall trend of proliferation.

TechCrunch believes the impasse between Anthropic and the Trump administration is far from over. The article proposes two possibilities: first, the US government may relax restrictions to maintain the international competitiveness of its AI companies; second, US AI companies will need government approval before providing services to overseas clients. The former implies acknowledging that overseas labs may still achieve similar capabilities, while the latter would increase compliance costs and squeeze profit margins for companies.