Anthropic put your entire tech world on discover final week with an unprecedented announcement: it made an AI mannequin so superior that it was too harmful to launch to the general public. Anthropic mentioned the brand new frontier language mannequin, Claude Mythos Preview, would “reshape cybersecurity.”
Anthropic additionally introduced the formation of Venture Glasswing, an invite-only group of organizations — together with a few of Anthropic’s largest opponents — to check Claude Mythos Preview and safe their infrastructure.
Anthropic mentioned that Claude Mythos Preview “discovered hundreds of high-severity vulnerabilities, together with some in each main working system and net browser.” (Emphasis in unique.) The corporate mentioned Venture Glasswing was vital “to assist safe the world’s most important software program.”
By Friday, CNBC reported that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had summoned the excessive clergymen of finance (aka banking CEOs) for an emergency assembly concerning the new mannequin. New York Occasions author Thomas Friedman fretted over a “terrifying” future during which any teenager armed with Claude might hack the native energy grid.
The response to Claude Mythos Preview shortly cut up alongside predictable traces. AI boosters hailed the brand new mannequin as proof that synthetic common intelligence (AGI) was nigh, praising Anthropic for rolling it out so responsibly.
Critics and AI skeptics known as Venture Glasswing an enormous publicity stunt.
So, which is it?
To search out out, Mashable has been reviewing Anthropic’s claims and speaking to AI and cybersecurity specialists.
What’s Claude Mythos Preview?
Claude Mythos is a brand new large-language mannequin that Anthropic says performs considerably higher than Claude Opus 4.6 — extensively thought of the most effective AI fashions on this planet — particularly in cybersecurity.
“In our testing, Claude Mythos Preview demonstrated a putting leap in cyber capabilities relative to prior fashions, together with the flexibility to autonomously uncover and exploit zero-day vulnerabilities in main working methods and net browsers,” reads the Claude Mythos system card.
Is Claude Mythos an indication of AGI?
Synthetic common intelligence refers to superintelligent AI that may carry out higher than people throughout a variety of duties. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that our complete financial system has been organized across the quest for AGI, as Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI, and OpenAI pour tons of of billions of {dollars} into a brand new arms race.
If Claude Mythos is as succesful as Anthropic says, would it not be an instance of AGI? The mannequin card addresses this query, and Anthropic does appear to assume it is near AGI.
Any main platform rollout on this period goes to look completely different to completely different audiences relying on their fluency and their worry tolerance. What I care about is whether or not the intent is actual, and the proof I’ve seen from Anthropic suggests it largely is.
– Howie Xu, Gen, Chief AI & Innovation Officer
In a bit about Claude Mythos security dangers, Antropic writes: “Present dangers stay low. However we see warning indicators that retaining them low might be a serious problem if capabilities proceed advancing quickly (e.g., to the purpose of strongly superhuman AI methods).” After all, Anthropic has a robust monetary incentive to advertise this perception.
This chart exhibits how Mythos compares to earlier Anthropic fashions on the Epoch Capabilities Index (ECI), which mixes a number of benchmark scores into one.
Credit score: Anthropic
Finally, the mannequin card for Claude Mythos is extra conservative than the response on-line would counsel.
For instance, whereas the Claude Mythos mannequin card does present that this mannequin performs above the pattern line for earlier Anthropic fashions, Anthropic says it does not present proof of self-improvement or recursive development. (“Importantly, although we’re observing a slope change with Claude Mythos Preview, we have no idea if this pattern will proceed with future fashions…The good points we will determine are confidently attributable to human analysis, not AI help.”)
Causes to assume Venture Glasswing is a publicity stunt
Do not make me faucet my signal: “[When] an AI salesman tells you that AI is an unstoppable world-changing know-how on the order of the agricultural revolution…it is best to take this prediction for what it’s: a gross sales pitch.”
I wrote these phrases of warning in response to an essay by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, which warned concerning the probably cataclysmic risks of AI. Anthropic additionally has a historical past of issuing dire warnings about its AI fashions.
It’s possible you’ll bear in mind the story of the Anthropic mannequin that attempted to “blackmail” an organization CEO to forestall it from being turned off. In actuality, Anthropic designed a check setting the place blackmail was a possible consequence. This can be extra akin to digital entrapment than real mannequin misbehavior.
So, is Claude Mythos the newest instance of the trade’s Hen Little downside?
On X, AI security engineer Heidy Khlaaf listed a lot of open questions that solid doubt on Anthropic’s claims.
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Anthropic mentioned the Claude Mythos preview discovered hundreds of zero-day vulnerabilities. However Khlaaf says Anthropic unnoticed key details wanted to evaluate this declare — the speed of false positives, how Claude Mythos compares to present cybersecurity instruments, and precisely how a lot handbook human assessment was required.
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“Releasing a advertising put up with purposely imprecise language that clearly obscures proof wanted to substantiate Anthropic’s claims brings into query if they’re making an attempt to garner additional funding,” Khlaaf instructed Mashable. “It additionally serves their ‘security first’ picture as they’re capable of body the shortage of public launch, even a restricted one for impartial analysis, as a public service when it merely obscures even specialists’ skills to validate their claims.”
We reached out to Anthropic repeatedly about these considerations, however the firm didn’t reply. We are going to replace this text in the event that they do. Within the Claude Mythos system card, Anthropic wrote that extra knowledge might be launched within the coming weeks because the bugs Mythos discovered are patched and glued.
Gary Marcus, an AI knowledgeable, scientist, creator, and famous critic of the LLM hype machine, initially instructed Mashable that it was too quickly to know whether or not Claude Mythos represented a brand new kind of risk.
However Marcus has grown extra skeptical since we spoke to him, and he just lately wrote on X that Mythos was “nowhere close to as scary” because it first appeared. “People, you’ll be able to chill out. Mythos isn’t some off-trend exponential achieve,” he wrote.
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Cybersecurity specialists instructed Mashable it is also impossible Claude Mythos might be used to “flip off the lights” or carry down vital infrastructure.
“Claims about catastrophic makes use of of Mythos additionally considerably misunderstand risk fashions, cybersecurity dangers, and the flexibility to propagate mentioned dangers in a manner that would truly result in safety-critical incidents,” Khlaaf instructed us. “It isn’t so simple as asking a mannequin ‘hack this method,’ with Anthropic’s personal technical weblog put up demonstrating a requisite of experience that Anthropic downplays of their advertising posts.”
Different specialists expressed skepticism, whereas additionally acknowledging that Mythos does signify a real danger, which Marcus has additionally mentioned.
“You could possibly argue it didn’t want a public announcement,” mentioned Div Garg, a Stanford AI researcher and founding father of AGI, Inc. “Nonetheless, in the end, the choice to restrict entry to solely those that develop and preserve vital software program is exactly what you need a enterprise to do in such a state of affairs…It’s straightforward to criticize the restricted entry, however worse outcomes would come up in the event that they launched it unchecked.”
Tal Kollender, Founder and CEO of cybersecurity agency Remedio, instructed Mashable that instruments like Claude Mythos are harmful as a result of they will automate exploit discovery.
“It is good company theater,” Kolender mentioned. “Labeling a mannequin ‘too harmful to launch to the general public’ is actually a advertising flex as a result of it instantly creates mystique and indicators immense energy to buyers. However beneath the PR stunt, there’s a very actual, very mundane reality…The cybersecurity trade does not even have a ‘discovering’ downside. We’re already drowning in instruments that detect vulnerabilities. What Mythos does is automate that discovery course of at an unprecedented scale.”
TL;DR: Per week after revealing Claude Mythos Preview, a few of Anthropic’s largest claims concerning the mannequin look loads sketchier, specialists say. Nonetheless, in addition they acknowledge that Claude Mythos poses an actual danger.
Nonetheless, there are many very legitimate causes to be nervous concerning the new frontier mannequin.
Causes to assume Claude Mythos Preview is a real risk to international cybersecurity
Within the New York Occasions, creator Thomas Friedman conjures a state of affairs straight out of Battle Video games, the place a young person hacks the native energy grid after faculty.
That state of affairs appears much more far-fetched per week later. However this is a more likely state of affairs: A classy group of hackers makes use of a software like Claude Mythos to search out zero-day vulnerabilities in our digital infrastructure, launching assaults quicker than organizations can reply.
And that state of affairs ought to fear you.
If Claude Mythos is not the software that may do it, most specialists agree such a software is not far off.
And among the world’s main cybersecurity specialists actually appear anxious.
“I’ve discovered extra bugs within the final couple of weeks [with Claude Mythos] than in the remainder of my complete life mixed,” mentioned Nicholas Carlini, a analysis scientist affiliated with Anthropic and Google DeepMind, in a video on the Venture Glasswing web site.
“On Linux, we discovered a lot of vulnerabilities the place, as a consumer with no permissions, I can elevate myself to the administrator by simply working some binary on my machine,” Carlini mentioned.
This week, the AI Safety Institute printed its findings on Claude Mythos’s capabilities, and it gives some impartial verification that it does signify a real leap ahead.
The AISI is analysis group throughout the UK authorities’s science and know-how division.
Credit score: AISI
Claude Mythos handed AISI cybersecurity assessments that no different mannequin had ever accomplished, scoring larger than some other frontier mannequin on nearly each check.
“Our testing exhibits that Mythos Preview can exploit methods with weak safety posture, and it’s possible that extra fashions with these capabilities might be developed,” AISI concluded.
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AISI additionally recognized some limitations with Claude Mythos, which might impair its effectiveness in real-world eventualities.
So, was Anthropic’s rollout of Mythos accountable AI stewardship or self-serving advertising? Specialists I talked to mentioned these choices aren’t mutually unique.
“I might say it is each, and that is not a criticism,” mentioned Howie Xu, Gen’s Chief AI & Innovation Officer. “Any main platform rollout on this period goes to look completely different to completely different audiences relying on their fluency and their worry tolerance. What I care about is whether or not the intent is actual, and the proof I’ve seen from Anthropic suggests it largely is.”
As is usually the case with fear-inducing AI headlines, the fact turned out to be extra sophisticated.
“Personally, I do not go to mattress worrying a couple of child with Mythos hacking the facility grid, however that does not imply the priority is fictional,” mentioned Xu. “We’re at an inflection level the place the artistic and collaborative upside of those instruments is very large, and the safety infrastructure hasn’t caught up. That hole is strictly what retains me busy. Even a fractional likelihood of a critical incident is an excessive amount of, which is why constructing a belief and safety layer into the agentic period is my excessive focus.”
Lastly, as Anthropic stresses within the Claude Mythos mannequin card, instruments like this can possible profit cybersecurity defenders greater than hackers within the long-term. And within the short-term, a extra cautious strategy — just like the strategy being modeled with Venture Glasswing — could also be warranted.
TL;DR: Claude Mythos has formidable cybersecurity coding skills, and it does signify a real risk. Nonetheless, if hackers have entry to AI instruments like Claude Mythos, so will the organizations defending in opposition to such assaults.
UPDATE: Apr. 14, 2026, 9:40 p.m. EDT This text has been up to date with further details about among the cited specialists.
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