AI risks in focus as Anthropic delays Mythos launch

American AI developer Anthropic has said it intends to “lay the risks out on the table” while restricting the deployment of its new model, Mythos, whose advanced cybersecurity capabilities are raising serious concerns for businesses and governments, News.Az reports, citing AFP.

“We have a model that's beginning to outstrip human capabilities in the cyber world,” said Guillaume Princen, Anthropic’s Paris-based head of relations with startups and technology firms, in an interview with AFP.

According to Princen, Mythos is “capable of spotting security holes that have existed for decades, in systems tested by both human experts and automated tools, that have never been discovered before.”

Anthropic has postponed a broad public release of the model, instead providing access to a limited group of key American technology and financial companies — including Nvidia, Amazon, Apple and JP Morgan Chase — so they can test and strengthen their security systems.

However, the company has also faced criticism for allegedly overstating the capabilities of its technology, a key area of competition with rival OpenAI.

The announcement comes amid growing speculation that Anthropic may go public later this year, with rumors of a potential stock market listing gaining traction.

"We prefer to be transparent and lay these risks out on the table," Princen said, adding that AI safety concerns are "central to Anthropic's DNA".

"We don't have all the answers, this has to be a conversation between tech actors like us who have the data, the academic world, the political world and the world of economists," he added.

Mythos' reported capabilities have unsettled the American financial sector and the European Union, which requested more information from Anthropic.

In an open letter to businesses, the British government said that Mythos "highlights the speed at which AI capabilities are increasing and the threats they potentially pose".

No European company is part of Anthropic's "Project Glasswing" consortium for shoring up cyber defences using Mythos' findings.

That has raised questions about how prepared the rest of the world will be for the offensive capabilities of US-owned AI.

Mythos is "certainly not a model that will soon be opened to the public at large, for obvious reasons," Princen said.

Anthropic is nevertheless "thinking about the next waves of opening up," he added.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev