Who decides when AI is too dangerous?

My guest today is Hayden Field, senior AI reporter for The Verge. Often when Hayden comes on the show, it’s because something has gone wrong in the world of AI. Last weekend, that something was a pretty intense mix of Anthropic, the Trump administration, and Anthropic’s new AI model, Fable 5. Hayden actually just published a fantastic play-by-play on The Verge about how the Fable ban went down, and the scramble through the weekend from both sides to figure out what exactly happened and how it might get resolved. So I wanted her to come on and just walk me through the timeline and what it all means. Read the ⁠full interview transcript on The Verge⁠. Links: Inside the fight over Claude Mythos 5 | ⁠The Verge⁠ Anthropic cuts off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 access following government order | ⁠The Verge⁠ Anthropic got hit by export rules nobody understands | ⁠The Verge⁠ Anthropic’s safety superpower | ⁠Stratechery⁠ "They screwed us": Personality clashes sent Anthropic's models offline | ⁠Axios⁠ Anthropic’s call for AI nonproliferation | ⁠New York Times⁠ Trump signs exec order to review AI models before release | ⁠The Verge⁠ New Anthropic model finds security problems ‘in every major OS, browser’ | ⁠The Verge⁠ Subscribe to The Verge⁠ to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:32Speaker 03

  Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Neelai Patel, editor in chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. My guest today is Hayden Field, the senior AI reporter here at The Verge. Often when Hayden shows up on Decoder, it's, I guess, something has gone wrong in the world of AI. And last weekend, that something was a pretty intense mix of Anthropic, the Trump administration, and Anthropic's new model, Claude Fable 5. On Friday, not even a week after Anthropic released Fable 5 to the public, the United States government said it was imposing export controls on that new model, as well as the underlying Mythos model that Fable was based on. Those controls restricted foreign nationals, even those working for Anthropic in the United States, from accessing these models. Anthropic then took Fable and Mythos offline for everyone, because the company said it

• 2:16Speaker 03

  was worried it would not be able to restrict access and reasonably comply with that order otherwise. As you might imagine, this is all a giant mess. Hayden actually just published a fantastic play-by-play on The Verge about how this all went down last Friday, and the scramble through the weekend from both sides to figure out exactly what happened and how it might all get resolved. So I wanted her to come on the show and walk me through the timeline and what it all means. The situation is ongoing. As of Tuesday, when we're recording this episode, Fable is still offline. In fact, if you boot up Claude, it tells you right above the chat box window that Fable 5 is currently unavailable. Yet, as you'll hear Hayden explain, whether Fable comes back online this week or not, the ripple effects of the government's feud with Anthropic have far-reaching consequences for the tech industry and the United States AI regulatory regime.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  There's also a big irony here, and you'll hear Hayden and I talk about it quite a bit. Anthropic has spent years arguing that AI might soon be powerful enough to be dangerous, and that the government needed to get serious about regulating AI sooner rather than later. Well, now we're here, and Anthropic doesn't love the way it's playing out. And now everyone, but maybe especially the Chinese government, is watching to see whether the United States AI regulatory approach takes the shape of a serious safety framework, or whether it's just another weapon for the White House to use against companies and people that don't bend the knee to the Trump administration. Like I said, it's a real mess. Okay, Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field on the Claude Fable ban and the new AI regulatory landscape. Here we go.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  Hayden Field, you're the senior AI reporter here at The Verge. Welcome back to Decoder.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Thanks, great to be here.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  It's always chaos when you're here, Hayden. That's, that's what I've come to discover.

• 4:04Speaker 04

  It really is. Also, my rule is still in effect in that it's always a Friday. Stuff always hits the fan on a Friday, and this was no different.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  Particularly when it comes to the government regulating AI. There's a real, what if it all went crazy on Friday? So we all had to think about it over the weekend. And then I think this has been basically true throughout the Trump administration. The scramble to put it all back together on Monday is immediate.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  Exactly. It's crazy. And the fact that all these talks were happening all over the weekend and then Monday, still no resolution. I'm surprised that things aren't resolved yet, but yeah, lots of drama.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  Well, this podcast is going to come out on a Thursday. We're recording on a Tuesday. We'll see what happens over the next two days. But I think the big picture here of how the United States government should regulate AI and what that means for American AI companies on the world stage is open. I don't think it's going to be resolved with whatever happens with Fable. So let's try to understand the whole story and then pull those themes out of it. Because they're just going to keep coming back around again and again and again. I think with every new model release now. So let's start at the start. What is Claude Mythos? What is Fable? How do they relate to each other?

• 5:20Speaker 04

  Great question. And I asked them the same thing when they came out with this like a week ago. Or by the time we published this, it'll be like a week and a half ago. Because yeah, AI companies are really bad at naming things and it's always very confusing. But the situation is Mythos is the underlying model that is powering both Mythos 5 and Fable 5. Fable is a new thing. They haven't had Fable 1, 2, 3, or 4. They just immediately started with Fable 5. Very confusing. But Fable is the watered down or safeguarded version of Mythos 5. So when they came out with Mythos preview in April, Anthropic kept saying, you know, they were really hyping it up. They were saying this is a You know, potential cyber weapon.

• 6:04Speaker 04

  It's got to be never released to the public, at least until safeguards catch up, et cetera, et cetera. We're only going to release it to enterprise and governments, AKA cyber defenders is what they called them. You know, places that need to patch up all their frameworks before, you know, bad actors come in and exploit those vulnerabilities. Now, fast forward to last week, and they released not only Mythos 5, which is the first like official Mythos, before it was Mythos preview, so we skipped straight to 5. Then they also released on the same day, Fable 5, which was the very first like public version of Mythos class models, AKA same underlying framework, but now tons of safeguards

• 6:48Speaker 04

  built on top to hopefully stop the public from accessing this super dangerous, by Anthropic's own admission, model that could, you know, mess up everything. So yeah, that's what they released and they spent a long time hyping this up and talking about how dangerous it was. And then it kind of came back to haunt them later.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  So Fable is a Mythos with the security guardrails. And when it first came out, there was a wave of controversy, right? AI researchers, security researchers found those guardrails were actually preventing them from doing research and seeing what Fable was capable of. Because if they tried to push the boundary, it would downgrade them to Anthropic's previous models.

• 7:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, it became kind of like a meme. Like, people were making fun of how strict the guardrails were when it came out.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  So that's the thing that's confusing me, where there's a controversy because the guardrails are so strict. And then something happened that made the government think Fable was so dangerous that it needed to be pulled. What happened?

• 7:45Speaker 04

  I talked to some independent red teamers about this. And before the Amazon white paper was circulating, before this allegation of a jailbreak was public, I talked to some red teamers about how safe Fable 5 was. And they were all pretty impressed with how the guardrails held up. Like, they were, I was expecting it to be, you know, a little bit easier to jailbreak. They were saying they had tried a lot of stuff and nothing was working. So that's not my experience when I usually talk to independent red teamers. They're like, yeah, I got a jailbreak here, I got a jailbreak there. In this case, they were saying it held up pretty well. Now, what happened this time is, according to a source familiar with the negotiations, who was directly involved with the negotiations that I spoke with yesterday.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  This is kind of the timeline of last week. Mid last week, Anthropic was made aware of some research that Amazon researchers were doing and that they had uncovered a potential jailbreak, something they were pretty worried about. They sent it over to Anthropic. Anthropic was kind of going back and forth with the Amazon researchers, talking about it. And they were discussing whether it was really a jailbreak or whether it was not that big of a deal, essentially. Apparently, reports say that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy then got worried about it and called maybe Scott Bessin, some member of the Trump administration, on Friday and talked about his concerns.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  The Trump administration freaked out immediately. They immediately call Anthropic. They're like, they send them a message, actually, and they say, "Look, you need to shut this down in 90 minutes, and we need to figure out how to..." 90 minutes? Yep, 90-minute ultimatum. And they said, "We need to figure out how to fix this jailbreak that's come to light." Anthropic got on the phone with the Trump administration within 15 minutes of that first call. And they were asking for more details. They're like, "Okay, let's talk about this. Are you talking about the research we're already aware of? Are you talking about something different? What is the jailbreak you're talking about?" They're trying to get more details and talk to the administration. I think the administration was also mad that Dario Amade, the CEO of Anthropic, didn't

• 9:59Speaker 04

  call back until an hour and 15 minutes after that first call. So Anthropic called back 15 minutes in. It took Dario an hour and 15 minutes to call back. So there is a lot going on here. By the time they're talking, whatever, the 90-minute deadline passes, the Trump administration says, "Okay, that's it. Yep, we're hitting you with export controls." And so that is when they told Anthropic, "No foreign national can use either of these models, and you have to just make sure that that is the case." No foreign national, whether they work at Anthropic or not. AKA, if you're...

• 10:38Speaker 04

  Say Bank of America and you have access to Mythos 5 and you're using it to plug vulnerabilities in your system and you're not a US citizen, you can't use it. Same with, you know, a random, just regular individual using Fable 5. Same with a Anthropic researcher who is not a US citizen. So Anthropic did the only thing it could really do in this situation. And they said, okay, we got to sideline both these models. We can't confirm that, you know, we can't in like one minute, figure out a way to make sure no non-US citizens are using the models. So that's what happened. I mean, it was a crazy couple of hours. Anthropic comes out with a statement later that night saying they're trying to work with the Trump administration on this, spent all weekend virtually meeting with the Trump administration and then flying three employees out,

• 11:23Speaker 04

  who I detail in the piece we just published, to DC to talk to them in person. Notably, Dario was not there in person. He is virtually joining all these meetings. I can confirm he was not at a wellness retreat, which is what some reports say, but they won't tell me where he is. But he's not at a wellness retreat.

• 11:41Speaker 03

  Absolutely not at a wellness retreat, is what Anthropic said.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  So yeah, there's a lot going on, very dramatic. All the sources I spoke with over the past couple of days were saying the whole tech industry and the cybersecurity community in particular are just talking about how, you know, one source told me Beijing is laughing at us right now. It was interesting because some cybersecurity leaders in the space came together to write a public letter and they said, look, not all of us believe in regulation, but if you are going to regulate it, this is not the way, which I think is just kind of indicative of this whole situation.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  We're going to pause here for a quick break. We'll be right back.

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  Hi, everyone. I'm Kara Swisher.

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  And I'm Scott Galloway.

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  Twice a week, we get together on Pivot to sort through the biggest stories in tech, business and politics. And we're taking the show back on the road for a live tour in November.

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• 14:25Speaker 03

  We're back with Verge's senior AI reporter Hayden Field, discussing Anthropic's new showdown with the US government over AI regulation.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Maybe you believe in aggressive government regulation. Maybe you don't. There's a way to operate the regulatory efforts that is rigorous and thoughtful and careful and predictable. Nothing about this seems like it was rigorous or thoughtful or predictable. I actually want to start at the beginning. Andy Jassy, Scott Besson, might be smart guys. They obviously have very senior positions in our society. They're not experts in AI. How did we get to Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, relaying concerns about AI security research to Scott Besson, who does not really oversee AI policy in any meaningful way? And that resulting in a 90-minute ultimatum delivered to a company?

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Who's CEO is absent, like all of that, just I don't think your politics should matter. If you just examine that, you have to say either this is the worst security breach in history, the CEO of Amazon is going to call the Treasury Secretary, or this is just a bunch of guys who want to feel important. And I can't quite figure out which one it is.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  I think it's a combination of a couple of things. One, it's the fact that, like you mentioned, a lot of these guys are not experts in AI. And something that I'm not saying it's not like any jailbreak of this is obviously, you know, serious and worth considering. But I think that it's the type of thing, when you don't have direct knowledge of how these systems work, you're going to take a really black and white immediate like I think that these guys weren't experts. Andy Jassy hears about this from his own researchers, his own researchers, by the way, who had been going back and forth with Anthropic for a couple of days on this. So they weren't, you know, calling the president about it. They're like, Okay, let's discuss this and kind of, you know, figure out what we can

• 16:21Speaker 04

  do here. The researchers allegedly didn't seem to think it was, you know, the end of the world. They're just like, Oh, we uncovered this, you know, let's, let's discuss. Anthropic was working on it. And then Andy Jassy hears about it. He makes this call. Everything hits the fan, which makes sense, because if you are not an AI expert, and even if you are an AI expert, maybe you're not an expert on cybersecurity and how exactly these systems work, of course. So you're going to freak out. I mean, it's kind of understandable. But what is really strange is what happened after that. So, you know, making this phone call, the administration becoming aware, okay. But what I think is really weird is the 90 minute ultimatum, them not giving them additional details when they said, Hey, let's talk about it. Are you talking about the vulnerability we're already aware of?

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Or are you talking about something else? And can you just tell us about it? So then we can talk about it? They said, No, 90 minutes, do it or die. And then making it so that no foreign national can access the system ever. That is what's really strange, just kind of the way all these cards fell is. Everyone in the tech industry thinks is just really strange. And it's kind of indicative of, like you mentioned, the way that the Trump administration has been operating with tech. A lot of times, it's, it seems to be President Trump has one conversation and he's kind of swayed from that most recent conversation. So, you know, he's been very anti-regulation, very pro-American AI, advancing, exporting American AI, which is something that the Commerce Department is requesting, has an RFI out on right now.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  They're all about exporting American AI and like, you know, advancing and beating China. But then they do this thing that kind of kneecaps everyone with no notice and could very well impact not just Anthropic, but also OpenAI, Google, every competitor in the space that also has what they call a semi-equivalent mythos product. So, yeah, there's just, it's, it's really, it seems really disorganized. And it's very interesting that, you know, this often ends up in a scramble with all these CEOs kind of trying to race to kowtow to the Trump administration without really being grounded, a lot of times, in science or evidence that really like matches what's going on.

• 18:32Speaker 04

  I feel like the level of freakout is not usually matching, you know, the, the evidence there, but.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  Amazon is an investor in Anthropic. They're a major partner. Why did Andy Jassy kneecap his own investment in this way?

• 18:45Speaker 04

  Well, Amazon typically like does a lot of red teaming just normally. Um, you know, it's kind of just part of their process. So it makes sense that this would have been tested and then unearthed. But what's interesting is why Andy Jassy called the Trump administration about it. I'm not sure. Maybe it was a typical call that was already happening and he just happened to mention something offhand. Maybe he was calling them and saying, yeah, good thing you did the executive order because X, Y, Z. Don't know. But what is interesting, and I'm glad you asked this because a lot of the sources I

• 19:25Speaker 04

  spoke with said that the stuff in the alleged jailbreak and in the Amazon white paper that's been circulating. All of it could be achieved by OpenAI's GPT-5.5 and some other models. So that's the allegation that this is not, these skills are not unique to Fable 5. The skills in question as part of the jailbreak. Mythos is obviously more powerful than Fable because it doesn't have safeguards. But when it comes to Fable and the problems that were brought to light by Amazon, it seems like those problems are not unique to Fable and that GPT-5.5 can also achieve those. So it's like, something that a lot of people in the industry are asking is why Anthropic?

• 20:08Speaker 03

  So a real element of this is that it's always Anthropic. Anthropic has the most contentious relationship with the Trump administration. They were designated a supply chain risk by the Department of War. But the posture here is different than the usual Anthropic drama. Historically, Anthropic has said, we don't want you to use our tools for X, Y, and Z. And the Trump administration has said, no, we get to do whatever we want with the AI tools. That's why they were designated a supply chain risk by the Department of War. They said, we have some red lines about how we want to be used in the military context. And Pete Exed said, nope, I'm going to do whatever I want. You have to allow all lawful purposes, that's the line. And because you won't, you're a supply chain risk. There's a lawsuit that's being argued about. Here, it's the opposite.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  The Trump administration is worried that the model is too powerful and can be used for too many things. And Anthropic seems to think that that belief is overblown. That the administration is overplaying a thing that they can fix. They just need the time to do it and some rigor in conversation about how effective their fix is. How do you put that together? That on the one hand, the Trump administration is anti-AI regulatory efforts. On the one hand, they say, we get to do whatever we want with the models. Make them as powerful as you can. And then here, the model is too powerful and has to be pulled before any foreign national can even look at it.

• 21:23Speaker 04

  The administration is trusting these companies to kind of...

• 21:31Speaker 04

  Tell it what it should be doing. We've seen that a bunch with, you know, any regulation that has happened or like has become voluntary, you know, lots of drafts have been adjusted after the Trump administration talks to AI companies. They already don't like Anthropic. You know, there's already a big trust breakdown between the two from the supply chain risk thing, from the lawsuit, from drawing red lines. And so I can't imagine that this exact situation would have played out if this had been a competitor. I mean, OpenAI has a mythos semi-equivalent. Again, like, you know, no company is really saying theirs is as good, but they say it's, you know, pretty good.

• 22:15Speaker 04

  Microsoft, Google, I can't, I think that the freak out would have still happened, but I cannot imagine the rest of it would have played out the way it was. I think they would have given them more time. I think they would have had more of a conversation. And I don't think they would have made this for a Nationals rule that has like, you know, sent shockwaves through the whole industry and the world. One of the sources I spoke with said he already knew that backup contracts were being signed with non-US companies right now, open weight models were being deployed on alternative hardware arrangements because now companies everywhere are saying, oh, wow, we got to make political risk part of our business plan now. We don't really know what's going to happen with American AI. Let's, you know, make some backup plans here, which is not good for the industry.

• 22:59Speaker 04

  And so I think it's just interesting that the Trump administration is so afraid of China overtaking us, yet, you know, they're kind of willing to kneecap one of their champions, as it were, in the industry. But I also think it's interesting that the reasoning from the Trump administration that's been coming out day by day seems to differ. So every day they seem to have kind of a new. Excuse or part of the conversation that's coming to light. So first they say, oh, well, what if China had access? A source I spoke with said that's a rumor from a few weeks ago, from way before Fable Five or Mythos Five came out, and that it was referencing like a Chinese telecom company

• 23:42Speaker 04

  that the administration had previously approved to have access to Mythos Preview. And that when the administration said, oh, actually, you know what? We changed our mind. Let's take them off. Anthropic immediately took them off and revoked that access. So I think that's an old rumor. Then we're also seeing the executive order thing where, you know, rumors have come to light that, oh, Anthropic wasn't complying with the Trump administration's executive order. Well, that executive order, it hasn't gotten to effect yet. They only, he only signed it on June 2nd. It's like, you know, two weeks ago. It takes 60 days for them to figure out which models are going to be covered under it. There was a voluntary, you know, partnership of like a 30-day pre-release review. It's voluntary.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  So I just think, you know, I'm not, it's funny because I'm not like, oh, Anthropic's totally in the right here at all. But it's just interesting because in this situation, there's just, there's so much like misdirection and scrambling and just weirdness that it's rare that you see me feeling kind of bad for an AI company. It really is like, I am not like, oh, yeah, like they're doing great. All AI companies have their own issues. But in this one case, I'm like, wow, like, I really don't know if this would have happened to OpenAI or, or another competitor after, you know, just all the drama Anthropic's been going through with the Trump administration. We know the Trump administration can be petty. And I think, you know, they would have freaked out for any company that was under this situation.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  But I think, I don't know, I can't see it playing out the exact same way with a competitor.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  Is it just as simple as Dario Amore doesn't go to the White House? He doesn't give Trump gifts? I mean, Sam Altman does press conferences with Donald Trump. Sunil Bishai attended the inauguration.

• 25:25Speaker 04

  Zuckerberg was at the UFC fight.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  Notable AI winner Mark Zuckerberg was at the UFC fight trying to buy his way into success. Is it just that simple that he that there's a personality clash here?

• 25:37Speaker 04

  That's the way it's been perceived by some reports. I mean, I think that's definitely part of it. Um, you know, some reports have said, you know, he doesn't know how to talk to the administration, um, you know, in that he doesn't kowtow as much. He doesn't, uh, you know, know how to play the game. I think that's part of it. I think the other part of it is that, um, the Trump administration isn't quite sure how they're going to regulate things and they're being, you know, President Trump is being like pulled in different directions. But by any conversation he has, sometimes he feels like it needs to be more regulated. Sometimes he thinks it needs to be less. Like if he's talking to AI CEO, it seems like he's like, yeah, you know what? I trust them. We're good. Let them go ahead. We gotta beat China. In other cases, you know, he sees, um, you know, the public is going through

• 26:19Speaker 04

  a pretty anti-AI era right now. You know, there's a lot, there's a rise in AI populism. And, you know, he's saying, oh, well, actually the ever man kind of doesn't like AI. Oh, maybe I should regulate. So I think that there's just, it's kind of something we've seen with the administration a bunch over the past however many years, but now it's, it's being represented in AI regulation. It's just there's not really a rhyme or reason right now. And I don't think that Anthropic's communications with the administration help. Um, you know, if you don't take their call the second they call, if you're not, um, you know, flying to the White House to have dinner, it probably hurts your relationship a little bit in a presidency that seems to be pretty relationship based a lot of the time.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  It's just a handful of guys and how they feel. And that seems to be our regulatory apparatus?

• 27:06Speaker 03

  We have to take on a short break. We'll be back in just a minute.

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  We're just about one month out from the midterm elections in these United States. And despite all the gerrymandering and voting restrictions, legal challenges and personnel shakeups, it looks like the Democrats are gonna flip the House of Representatives.

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• 28:58Speaker 03

  We're back with Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field, discussing why Anthropic keeps fighting itself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  The Biden administration, like, notable for a lack of personality and people, was very technocratic, very rules-based in a way that I think people often thought was bloodless. But the Biden administration, they did put forward an executive order that had things like transparency reviews and research requirements for the frontier models. Trump came into office, he wiped all that out. He said, "We're not gonna regulate these companies." And now it seems like we're just headed back there, right? If you're gonna put out an ultra-powerful model, the administration wants control of it, certainly they will use the bluntest instrument they have in the form of export controls, but we're gonna get back to a more fine-grained, more rigorous approach to how these models are deployed and used and who gets to use them. Was it a mistake to wipe out the Biden framework?

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Are we headed back to that framework? Where do we think this goes now?

• 29:56Speaker 04

  I could see us going back there because a lot of activists and academics, I interviewed a ton of people in the industry at the time, like, ranging across a ton of different viewpoints. And most of them believed that the Biden-era executive order wasn't quite enough. Some people thought it was a good first step. And I think that's why I could see us going back there, because it wasn't... Seen as being extremely aggressive. If anything, it was seen as being like, you know, a good first step in the direction, but really just one rung on the ladder, you know? And I think that that's why I could see, you know, the current administration going back there because it wasn't that far. You know, I will say AI companies will lobby against even that little step.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  They did.

• 30:41Speaker 04

  But I mean, yeah, they did. They did deeply. But I could see it being, you know, going back there, but a little more voluntary, which again, all these things usually get watered down. It's like they come out swinging and then they talk to some AICs and they're like, oh, okay, let's roll it back a little bit. So who knows, honestly? But you know, the reason I became an AI reporter is because I felt like there was no real regulation in the space. And this was even before ChatGPT. And, you know, journalism is a way to kind of shine a light on what's going on in the industry. And I think, you know, still six years later, we're not seeing a lot of regulation and any that had to have been got rolled back. So, you know, maybe we'll go back in that direction. I do see us going somewhere there, but maybe not even as much as that first rung.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  It almost feels like the industry needs to push for a more considered regulatory approach, right? That they need to say, this is chaos. This can't be how we operate. Every new model can't be forced to contend with panicked phone calls on the weekend. What kind of system would you build, right? If you wanted a more rigorous review process here? Is it they just submit their models to the government and the government says what's dangerous and not? Is it more industry based? What are the solutions being proposed?

• 31:53Speaker 04

  There haven't been a lot of really robust solutions proposed recently because of this current administration. They've had a really light touch approach to regulation. So, you know, no one's really surfacing those. Now that that might be changing, I think we'll be, we'll see more robust frameworks proposed. And I just hope that

• 32:12Speaker 04

  They're not voluntary. AI companies already do a lot of voluntary stuff. If you're gonna regulate, do it, you know? There's not, I don't think you need to, there's a lot of different opinions on how light touch or heavy touch regulation should be, but I do think that voluntary frameworks are pretty, pretty watered down, you know what I mean? It's like, we already have those, so what's, what's next? You know, there's a big, I think it's important to remember how like the general public feels because this is who AI is really affecting at the end of the day. And yeah, the rate, the rise in AI populism and the fact that people are upset. There's data center protests going on everywhere. People are even in extreme cases like attacking AI CEOs' homes or attempting to.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  There is a lot of disquiet here and people feel like they're getting replaced. They feel like their jobs are getting replaced. You know, I was listening to a Seattle city council hearing recently and a lot of AI engineers were testifying, saying that they got laid off because of AI. And they were engineers. So I, I think both AI leaders and the government often kind of are pretty distanced from what the general public is feeling about this technology. And it's important to note. So I think, you know, we'll see how that impacts, if at all, regulation that comes out. I don't have high hopes for a lot of regulation under this administration because they can be really swayy, you know? I think like, you know, they have dinner one time and then things might shift a little bit. And to be fair, like many politicians are that way. But, you know, we'll see.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  Maybe after this executive order, you know, the 60 days are up. Maybe we see some changes that surprise me. I don't know.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  One of the weirder aspects of this is that Anthropic itself is the company that most pushes for regulation, that most sends the alarm, is the most doomer-ish of all the companies. Jack Clark, one of the co-founders of Anthropic, recently put out research and his conclusion was that, quote, "We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology." Anthropic is way on the front line of saying, "Oh, we might kill everyone." Boy, we should stop this. But they're also on the front line of model capability. Right by by all accounts, Mythos is the most powerful model that exists today. Is Anthropic just getting itself in trouble? Is this just marketing strategy for them that's backfiring?

• 34:33Speaker 04

  I think it's a combination. I think that the marketing speak is definitely backfiring. You know, if you say something's that dangerous and then a researcher unearths something that maybe wasn't quite meant to be possible. Yeah, people are gonna freak out. And so that's why I'm kind of like, you know, I can see the first thing happening to anyone. I can't see the the rest of it, the way that the cards fell. But yeah, I think it's partly there. You know, it came back to haunt them, you know? It was a little bit on them in terms of the hype. But I also think that they are trying to be honest in some ways about the risk that this technology can pose. And, you know, it would be really bad if a, you know, system that can flag high level

• 35:18Speaker 04

  vulnerabilities in our global infrastructure that we use, like your bank system or, you know, a government website could just be used by bad actors that fell into the wrong hands. Yeah, that's pretty bad. And so, you know, I think it comes down to communication. Like, yep, it's important to talk about the risks and not downplay them. But also, you know, if you do that and then you make a mistake or something unexpected happens, you gotta deal with the consequences. So, yeah, there's a lot to unpack there for sure. And I also think that, you know, a lot of companies do downplay risks of different systems. Like, you know, we've seen a bunch of AI CEOs, including Anthropic, I believe, talk about how, you know, jobs aren't all gonna be replaced.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  It's okay. You know, there's I always take all this stuff with a huge grain of salt because at the end of the day, whatever AI company you're talking about, whether it's Anthropic or not, they all have the incentives to turn a profit and make money at all costs. And especially if they become a public company, which they are about to. So people like to paint Anthropic one way and other competitors another. But they're all they're all pursuing the same goal. They just are doing it a little bit differently.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Is there a version of this where we just treat AI like military technology from the jump and the public gets watered down version of the military technology? Because that seems to be the risk profile that the Trump administration is operating within. Right, this is fundamentally offensive technology. We can deploy it against our enemies. We can use it to attack the banks. Everyone is worried about the security implications here. Is there a world in which we just start there and then say to deploy to the public, to consumers? You gotta cut this way down. We're not gonna sell F22s to the public, but we can sell Ford Raptors to the public. Like, there's some version of this, right?

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Where it's like the technology gets cut way down for the public with the bleeding edge just fundamentally for the military.

• 37:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, that's like what we've seen a lot for decades, and I think it's starting to happen now with the Mythos stuff. You know, Fable is the watered-down version, and you know, enterprise and governments have access to the more powerful version. There's a lot of different opinions on that. Like, OpenAI, one of its biggest marketing pushes right now is, oh, Anthropic wants, you know, the most powerful AI to only be in the hands of the elites, and we want to bring it to the public. So there's a bunch of different marketing pushes right now. Everyone's just kind of using everything to their advantage or to paint their competitors badly, Anthropic included. So it's like, you know, I think the race is just heating up so intensely that, you know, the AI companies at the forefront are doing anything they can to win at all costs. Some because they think that they are the best and most moral winner,

• 38:02Speaker 04

  which I think can always be a big issue, as we've seen in like every sci-fi or, you know, fantasy movie. The "for the greater good" thing is typically used by, you know, the villain in the story. So I think it's, I don't know, it's, there's a big race happening right now, and I totally agree with Jack Clark that, you know, it might be good to slow things down a bit. If everyone could agree, if everyone could agree, which is very, you know, a huge long shot, and, you know, especially it'd be very difficult to get other countries to agree as well. But we are definitely building the technology much faster than we can think about the implications of it, and we have been for a long time.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  I think this first episode of Decoder where Dario Amede was directly compared to Thanos, so that's great.

• 38:49Speaker 04

  To be fair, I was thinking about the guy in Harry Potter when I said that. What was it? Grendelwald, Grendelwald.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh. All right. Well, Dario, if you want to come on and address these allegations, you're more than welcome.

• 39:00Speaker 04

  Also gotta say, it's not just Dario. All of the AI CEOs are saying that, all of them. It's like they're all, yeah, it's crazy.

• 39:07Speaker 03

  Where does this end? What are the next steps here? There's meetings happening this week. People are gonna be hearing this on Thursday. There's a chance Anthropic is just back on the market. There's a chance it's not. But after this, it seems like everybody wants a process. Where do you think this ends?

• 39:21Speaker 04

  Honestly, it's very difficult to predict how this administration is going to act. As we saw with the supply chain risk thing. Even though a lot of government agencies were big fans of Claude, I thought that that was going to be rolled back eventually because, but they, you know, just signed deals with seven other companies and said, okay, we're good. Like, you know, even if you guys were fans of Claude, whatever, here are seven other options for you. It's anyone's guess right now. I do think that the foreign nationals thing is going to be rolled back. I mean, I just can't imagine that after all the hubbub that the administration has, you know, created about American AI has to win, you know, the Hegseth memo from January 9th about how like speed at all costs.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  I just think this administration is so focused on winning in AI that there's no way they're going to, you know, continue with that rule, but who knows? So I think I could see this becoming a personality game over the next few days. Anthropic compromises in some way. They try to communicate better, whatever. And then in a couple of days, this gets rolled back. But then, you know, I've seen some rumors that the Trump administration is trying to have a stake in Anthropic and OpenAI, an ownership stake. So, you know, there could be a lot of different resolutions, quote, quote, to that here. We'll see, but I definitely, I can't foresee this as it exists right now, continuing for more than a couple of days.

• 40:50Speaker 04

  I mean, the industry is just aghast at this.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  Hayden, we're going to obviously have to have you back very soon as this comes to a close. Thank you so much for being on Decoder.

• 40:59Speaker 04

  Thanks so much.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  I'd like to thank Hayden Field for taking the time to join Decoder and thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to let us know what you thought about this episode or really anything else at all, drop us a line. You can email us at [email protected]. We really do read every email. Or you can hit me up directly on Threads or Blue Sky. We're also on YouTube. You can watch full episodes at DecoderPod. It's the same handle on TikTok and on Instagram at DecoderPod. They're a lot of fun. If you like Decoder, please share it with your friends and subscribe wherever you're podcasting. If you really like the show, hit us with that five star review. Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Kate Cox, Nick Statt, edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. We'll see you next time.