U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnick warned Anthropic PBC in a letter last week that if the company allows foreign citizens to use its most advanced artificial intelligence models, it must obtain prior U.S. government approval or risk criminal and civil penalties. Bloomberg News obtained a copy of the letter.
The letter, dated Friday, requires Anthropic not to provide access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 artificial intelligence models to foreign citizens anywhere in the world without permission from the Department of Commerce.
Lutnick did not explain why the restrictions were needed, but in his letter, he cited relevant U.S. law and pointed out that the government has the right to impose export controls on civilian technology that may be used by adversary militaries for intelligence activities.
A spokesman for the U.S. Commerce Department declined to comment. An Anthropic spokesman referred Bloomberg to the company's blog post on export control issues.