WASHINGTON: A US official told The Associated Press on Tuesday (Jun 23) that one of Anthropic's artificial intelligence models had identified vulnerabilities in highly sensitive and secure US government computer systems during a testing exercise.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said Anthropic had teamed up with US intelligence agencies to conduct tests using the company's Mythos model. 

It had identified certain vulnerabilities within hours, but that does not mean the model was able to exploit them within that time, the official said.

The official said the testing was done through an Anthropic initiative called Project Glasswing, which brought together tech giants and other companies in hopes of securing the world’s critical software from “severe” fallout that the Mythos model could pose to public safety, national security and the economy.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia had briefly mentioned the testing during a Jun 11 hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. 

Warner had said, “This tool broke into almost all of our classified systems, not in weeks but in hours.” He attributed the information to the head of the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command, who is General Joshua Rudd.

The NSA declined to comment on the matter in an email. An Anthropic spokesman also declined to comment.

Despite the recent cooperation between Anthropic and US agencies to test for vulnerabilities, tensions between the California company and the Trump administration have been growing.

Anthropic has raised concerns over how the US military would use its AI, while the administration has restricted the use of some of Anthropic’s models.

The administration issued a directive earlier this month requiring Anthropic to prevent foreign nationals from using its latest artificial intelligence models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Anthropic released Fable widely earlier this month. 

That model is a limited version of the more advanced Mythos, to which the company has tightly limited access due to cybersecurity fears.