Anthropic model takedown fuels warning of ‘ad hoc’ AI regulation

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The Trump administration is coming under fire for a directive prompting Anthropic to pull its latest models, and artificial intelligence policy advocates warn the move signals the White House is taking an “ad hoc” approach to AI regulation that could hurt innovation.

Anthropic disabled access to its newest Fable and Mythos models Friday after receiving a federal export control order requiring it to block foreign nationals from using them.

The rare move caught the tech industry by surprise and stoked concerns the directive could set a precedent for how much influence the government can have on AI development and release.

“When ad hoc executive actions replace clear standards, America risks surrendering its lead in AI and allowing genuinely dangerous technology to be deployed,” said Brad Carson, president and co-founder of Americans for Responsible Innovation, a nonprofit that has been a vocal advocate for stronger AI guardrails.

Model takedowns

Anthropic revealed late Friday it had pulled its latest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, just three days after their release. The models are both based on the Mythos model that the company initially opted not to release to the broader public amid concerns it could supercharge hacking capabilities.

Fable 5 was released to the public with safeguards in place meant to protect against uses the company considered dangerous, while a new version of Mythos was provided to a small group of cyber-defenders and infrastructure providers with fewer guardrails.

The research community initially slammed Anthropic for intentionally limiting the new models’ responses if they suspect users are working on AI research. But the focus shifted to the export controls directive by the end of the week.

Several outlets reported Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had reached out to the administration Thursday to flag concerns about a potential method of “jailbreaking,” or bypassing, the guardrails on Fable, prompting efforts to get the company to voluntarily pull the models. Amazon is invested in Anthropic. The Hill has reached out to Amazon for comment.

Anthropic pushed back, arguing a “narrow potential jailbreak” should not be a cause for pulling a model. It sought to distinguish this from a universal jailbreak, in which an individual can broadly bypass a model’s safeguards, and suggested that “perfect jailbreak resistance” is not currently possible.

“If this standard was applied across the industry, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers,” the company wrote.

“As we have stated publicly, we believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts,” it added. “This action does not adhere to those principles.”

Anthropic staff met Monday with officials at the Commerce Department, an administration official told The Hill.

White House’s mixed messaging

A source close to Anthropic said the Trump administration gave the company 90 minutes to pull Fable, without providing any prior indication about a threat to national security.

AI policy figures criticized the unexpected directive, arguing Fable’s takedown exemplified a “licensing regime,” just weeks after the White House clarified it only supports optional government testing and limited oversight.

“AI is licensed now, but the requirements change constantly and are always a secret, even to the administration itself, which will discover the rules spontaneously in real time as it reacts to events,” Dean Ball, a co-author of Trump’s White House AI Action Plan, wrote in a social media post on Monday.

Mandatory government testing is off the table for most AI firms, which warn it could slow down U.S. development and hurt competition with China. The Trump administration has largely agreed, but the release of more advanced models like Mythos forced the White House to consider voluntary model testing.

The Mythos release was followed by weeks of debate over how the White House should handle the cybersecurity risks of newer AI models, as the administration tries to balance AI safety concerns with its longtime commitment to light-touch regulation.

Trump signed an order earlier this month laying out a voluntary testing process in which AI labs can provide the government with their models up to 30 days ahead of release to test for certain risks. While the administration emphasized testing was not mandatory, some predicted at the time these assurances would not be enough.

“Forget ‘voluntary,’ forget ‘permissionless,’” Ball said, adding, “The government wants to apply its force to frontier AI; that much is clear. It wants to make the industry submit.”

Tensions reignite between the White House and Anthropic

Trump allies criticized Anthropic’s resistance to taking down its models, suggesting the decision runs counter to the company’s safety commitments that have been at the heart of previous disputes with the administration.

Former White House AI and cryptocurrency czar David Sacks said in a post on the social platform X on Saturday that the administration has “been very surprised that Anthropic hasn’t wanted to cooperate with a reasonable safety request.”

“Anthropic’s reaction is very much at odds with their branding and ethos as a safe AI research community,” he added.

Anthropic became embroiled in a highly public feud with the Pentagon earlier this year over the safety guardrails in its contract terms. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ultimately designated the company a supply chain risk, which the AI firm is challenging in court.

Amid this Fable debacle, Hegseth touted this decision, writing in a Saturday social media post: “Every passing day proves why that was the right move.”

Anthropic accused the Pentagon and Hegseth of retaliating against the company for political differences earlier this year, and some online suggested last weekend’s Fable order built upon this.

The alleged licensing regime “means also that the rules in practice are stricter and more roughly enforced for organizations the administration does not like,” Ball said.

One former Trump official rejected these suggestions.

Taylor Budowich, who recently departed as Trump’s deputy chief of staff, said it is not about a personality and political dispute, but that “Anthropic abandoned its safety guardrails the moment they became commercially inconvenient. It was so egregious their corporate partner — Amazon — felt compelled to blow the whistle.”

The Anthropic debate is “no surprise,” said Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute, and Adam Thierer, a resident senior fellow with the Technology and Innovation team at the R Street Institute.

However, they argued in a Substack post Sunday that “even if you disagree with Anthropic’s regulatory strategy, this escalation of government intervention is nothing to celebrate.”

“It is horrible for the broader AI ecosystem,” they wrote. “Continued arbitrary, unexplained deployment of export control authority will make companies slow-walk new models, depriving the public of powerful new tools.”

“The US government should not hang a Sword of Damocles over every lab’s head, with no indication when it might drop or why,” the pair added.

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