What is Claude Mythos?
That’s what Fortune’s Beatrice Nolan wondered after she heard a tip about it earlier this month from sources on her AI beat. She exclusively reported its existence for Fortune on Thursday night.
In her reporting, Beatrice discovered that Anthropic had inadvertently placed roughly 3,000 digital assets in an unsecured, publicly searchable database. The documents included a draft blog post that revealed the existence of Mythos, a not-yet-released LLM model in the works from Anthropic. Mythos is gearing up to be Anthropic’s most powerful model yet, the company said in the draft blog post, and it could pose serious cybersecurity risks if it’s not tested and deployed properly.
I asked Beatrice for the story behind her story, and what it means for Anthropic in light of the ongoing Big Tech AI model wars.
How she reported the scoop: “These stories came from reviewing publicly accessible web infrastructure tied to Anthropic’s site, alongside analysis from independent security researchers,” Beatrice says. “Anthropic later confirmed to us that it was indeed testing a new model, which it described as its most capable yet. The company is treating it cautiously, limiting access to a small group of early users because of its potential risks—particularly in cybersecurity.”
What it means for the Big Tech AI wars: “For Anthropic, it signals increased concern about the use of AI tools in more advanced cyberattacks, including state-sponsored operations that could automate the discovery and exploitation of software vulnerabilities at scale,” Beatrice says. “But for competitors, it raises the bar again—especially around coding and security—while also intensifying concerns about how quickly these models could outpace existing safeguards.”
Beatrice’s scoop rattled markets, with cybersecurity stocks falling on fears that more advanced AI could both accelerate attacks and disrupt the sector. And it’s another sign of just how fast things are moving in this disruptive corner of the business world.
Check out her exclusive details on Anthropic’s yet-to-be-released most powerful model yet.
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