June 15 (Reuters) - Cybersecurity leaders at major U.S. firms including Nvidia and Adobe have asked the Trump administration to lift restrictions on Anthropic's most powerful AI models, arguing that the bans hamper efforts to prevent the spread of digital attacks.
The letter follows Washington's decision on Friday ordering Anthropic to suspend access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for any foreign nationals over national security concerns.
After previously warning about the hacking capabilities
of its Mythos model and withholding it from wide release, Anthropic last week released a public version called Fable with what it described as cybersecurity safeguards.
The curbs that Washington has now placed on the technology will limit the cybersecurity industry's ability to find and fix software flaws at a time when other AI tools are making it easier for hackers to exploit vulnerabilities, according to a letter on Sunday signed by more than 50 security leaders.
The letter said Anthropic's models were not uniquely capable of finding security flaws and weaponizing exploits, with many rival models offering similar abilities.
The company said in the blog it disagrees that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be the reason for halting access of a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people.
ANTHROPIC'S NATIONAL SECURITY TIGHTROPE
The letter from the security experts mirror Anthropic's sentiment. "This action has taken the best models away from defenders, created market uncertainty, and risked America's AI leadership without any real risk to justify it," the letter stated.
It argued that taking away access to Anthropic's latest models at a time when China is rapidly progressing with its own AI ambitions is "dangerous".
Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike last week said China-linked hackers posed the biggest espionage threat to technology companies over the past year.
Anthropic has previously tussled with the U.S. government on access to its models and their impact on national security.
Earlier this year, Trump directed U.S. agencies to stop working with Anthropic and declared it a supply risk due to its reluctance to let its technology be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons.
These tensions, however, are showing signs of easing as Anthropic, valued at $965 billion, prepares to go public.
(Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
