The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, summoned major American bank chiefs to a meeting in Washington this week amid concerns over cyber risks posed by Anthropic's latest AI model, Claude Mythos. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reportedly attended the meeting at Treasury headquarters, according to reports.
The meeting followed a leak of Claude's code, prompting Anthropic to publish a blogpost stating that AI models had surpassed 'all but the most skilled humans at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities', warning that the fallout for economies, public safety, and national security could be severe.
Attendees included Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Bank of America's Brian Moynihan, Citigroup's Jane Fraser, Morgan Stanley's Ted Pick, and Wells Fargo's Charlie Scharf. JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon was invited but unable to attend. In his annual letter to shareholders, Dimon warned that cybersecurity 'remains one of our biggest risks' and that AI will make it worse.
Anthropic has restricted the release of Mythos to a small number of businesses, including Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, after it exposed thousands of vulnerabilities in software and applications. This is the first time Anthropic has limited a product's release. Cisco, Broadcom, and the Linux Foundation also gained access.
The oldest vulnerabilities uncovered by Mythos were up to 27 years old, none of which had been noticed by creators or tech monitors. The meeting comes weeks after the US government designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk, which the company is contesting in court.
