How Anthropic’s mythos threw the White House AI strategy into chaos

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.WASHINGTON—On a recent call with the heads of the biggest artificial-intelligence companies, Vice President JD Vance was alarmed.New AI models such as Anthropic’s Mythos, which are capable of finding software vulnerabilities on their own, threatened to disrupt small-town banks, hospitals and water plants by starting cyberattacks that local governments weren’t equipped to handle, Vance said.“We all need to work together on this,” Vance told chief executive officers including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Elon Musk of SpaceX, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet’s Google and Satya Nadella of Microsoft, according to people familiar with the matter.The April call, which followed a White House briefing that played a role in sparking Vance’s concern over the latest AI model capabilities, set in motion a chaotic administration response to Mythos that threatens to increase government oversight of AI and overhaul the administration’s tech agenda. The concern expressed by Vance, paired with other moves by the White House to get involved in the rollout of AI models, marks a shift from previous language about winning the AI race against China and removing barriers to deploying models.The White House is weighing an executive order that could create a formal oversight process for the most-advanced models.

Administration officials have asked Anthropic to hold off on expanding access to Mythos to more companies and organizations that manage critical digital infrastructure. The White House has tapped National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross to lead its response to the model, which could include other actions to address model safety or limit the ability of private companies to dictate how the