Anthropic Opens Milder Version of Its Most Powerful AI to the Public

Anthropic has released a restricted version of its top-tier AI model, called Fable 5, to the general public, while keeping its full-power sibling under wraps for security reasons. Fable 5 is the first widely available model from the company's Mythos class - its most advanced AI family, unveiled in April but previously limited to a handful of partners due to concerns about misuse.

The model is designed for writing and debugging code, answering complex research questions, and analyzing images. But it comes with guardrails: queries about cybersecurity, biology, or chemistry are automatically rerouted to a less capable model, Opus 4.8. The same fallback applies to suspected attempts to extract Anthropic's technology for training rival AI models in authoritarian countries.

Meanwhile, an unrestricted version - Claude Mythos 5 - remains available only to select organizations, including roughly 200 cybersecurity partners in over 15 countries enrolled in Project Glasswing. That group expanded in early June and is expected to grow. The restrictions stem from Mythos' ability to quickly spot vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure like banking platforms and power grids.

Critics once accused Anthropic of hyping these risks, but early testers have validated the model's power. The U.S. government, after a legal dispute with the company, now collaborates with Anthropic on pre-release testing of leading AI models. The Pentagon, however, severed contracts after Anthropic refused to lift restrictions on mass surveillance and autonomous weapons.

The pricing is steep: $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens - double the cost of Opus 4.8. An intensive coding session can burn through a million tokens in hours. Despite rapid revenue growth, Anthropic remains unprofitable, recently leasing a data center from Elon Musk's xAI for $1.25 billion per month.

Both Anthropic and OpenAI filed IPO plans this week, as the AI sector rides a wave of financial excitement.

Source: The Guardian