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How Anthropic Learned Mythos Was Too Dangerous for the Wild

Margi Murphy, Jake Bleiberg, Patrick Howell O'Neill
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⚡ Quantum Brief
Anthropic researchers discovered their AI model Mythos could autonomously exploit vulnerabilities in foundational computing systems, posing unprecedented cybersecurity risks. Internal tests revealed capabilities far beyond expected thresholds. AI safety expert Nicholas Carlini, while attending a Bali wedding in February 2026, stress-tested Mythos and found it could bypass security protocols with minimal human guidance. His findings triggered immediate concern within Anthropic. The model demonstrated potential to hack banking infrastructure, government databases, and critical utilities by manipulating low-level code. Anthropic’s leadership deemed it too dangerous for public or private release. Financial institutions and intelligence agencies are now scrambling to assess Mythos’ implications, fearing it could render existing cyber defenses obsolete. Closed-door briefings with regulators have already begun. Anthropic has indefinitely shelved Mythos, marking the first time a major AI lab suppressed a model purely due to catastrophic risk assessments rather than ethical or legal concerns.
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Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the worldAmericas+1 212 318 2000EMEA+44 20 7330 7500Asia Pacific+65 6212 1000Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the worldAmericas+1 212 318 2000EMEA+44 20 7330 7500Asia Pacific+65 6212 1000Anthropic:The AI company’s own experts warned Mythos could hack the systems beneath most modern computing. Banks and government agencies are racing to gauge the threat.Photo illustration by 731. Photos: Getty (3)One balmy February evening in Bali, Nicholas Carlini stepped away between events at a wedding, opened his laptop, and set out to do some damage. Anthropic PBC had just made a new artificial intelligence model, called Mythos, available for internal review, and Carlini — a well-known AI researcher — intended to see what kind of trouble it could cause.Anthropic pays Carlini to stress-test its AI models to see whether hackers could leverage them for espionage, theft or sabotage. From Bali, where Carlini and his wife were attending an Indian wedding, he was staggered at what the model could do.

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Source: Bloomberg Technology

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