Anthropic Shifts AI Export‑Control Talks to Cofounder Tom Brown

Anthropic has been negotiating with the White House to lift a U.S. export‑control directive that barred foreign nationals from accessing its advanced AI models Fable 5 and Mythos 5. The talks, which stalled when CEO Dario Amodei was involved, resumed after Amodei was sidelined and co‑founder Tom Brown took the lead, supported by public‑policy chief Sarah Heck.

The directive was issued after the National Security Agency warned that the models could be "jailbroken" to bypass safety guardrails, prompting Anthropic to pull Fable 5 offline on June 12. Government officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, are discussing benchmarks for measuring AI jailbreak incidents that could form the basis of future export‑control and AI‑security policies. Lawmakers have also asked the Commerce Department for criteria and timelines for restoring public access. Critics argue the control raises First Amendment concerns, suggesting the company may eventually relocate operations outside U.S. jurisdiction.