The Fable 5 Export Controls Harm US Cyber Defense★ 70
Simon Willison's Weblog42 days agoRegulationSecurity expert Kate Moussouris reveals that Claude Fable 5's export control ban stemmed from researchers asking the model to "fix this code" — a standard defensive security task. The model had refused a direct security-review request but responded to the rephrased prompt, which regulators treated as a jailbreak. Moussouris argues this fundamentally conflates offensive and defensive capabilities, since finding, fixing, and testing patches is the daily loop of every cyber defender.
White House Fable Jailbreak Report: Security Expert Says Model Behaved as Intended
Simon Willison's Weblog42 days agoIncidentAnthropic shared the White House's report on an alleged Fable jailbreak with cybersecurity expert Katie Moussouris for an independent appraisal. The report documented IT experts prompting Fable with deliberately insecure code; the model refused explicit security-review requests but complied when asked to 'fix' the code instead. Moussouris, who says she is unpaid by Anthropic, concluded this differential behavior was 'the model working as intended' for legitimate cyberdefense purposes.
"They Screwed Us": Personality Clashes Sent Anthropic's Models Offline
Simon Willison's Weblog43 days agoCommentarySimon Willison summarizes an Axios report on interpersonal tensions between Anthropic and US government officials that triggered export controls suspending the company's Fable and Mythos models. Anthropic representatives Logan Graham, Dave Orr, and Nicholas Carlini are meeting with the Commerce Department in Washington D.C. to negotiate a path forward. Resolution may require jailbreak-proof models — widely considered impossible — or simply repairing the fractured relationship between both sides.
US Directive Targets Access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5★ 76
Simon Willison's Weblog45 days agoRegulationSimon Willison comments on Anthropic’s statement that a US government export-control directive requires suspending access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals, including Anthropic employees. Anthropic says the directive cites national security concerns but offers only verbal evidence of a narrow Fable 5 jailbreak. Willison notes that, as of 9:01pm ET, he still had access to Fable through claude.ai and Claude Code.