On the evening of April 6, an unusual request began making its way from Washington to some of Wall Street’s most powerful executives. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wanted to see them first thing the next morning. The heads of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo had already been in Washington for a routine meeting of the Financial Services Forum, a trade association whose gatherings are usually free of drama. But as the bankers wound down their day over dinner and drinks, that quickly changed. Bessent had learned that the artificial intelligence company Anthropic had developed a new model, called Mythos, which would be released the next day to approved users in the public and private sector, a limited rollout that Anthropic said was the safest way to release its most capable model yet. Treasury secretaries do not typically occupy themselves with Silicon Valley product releases, but the growing capabilities of AI presented a unique threat to the American economy.Anthropic had briefed the government on the advanced model, which was capable of finding holes in digital infrastructure at lightning speed — a skill that could be used for defense in the right hands, or to wreak havoc in the wrong ones. In late March, Microsoft had privately warned administration officials after receiving early access to Mythos that it represented a significant leap and could automate sophisticated cyberattacks against financial institutions, the energy grid and other critical infrastructure, allowing less skilled actors to carry out operations once limited to elite hackers.The White House spun into crisis mode. In the Situation Room, Cabinet secretaries met with the administration’s top science adviser to understand Mythos’ capabilities and brainstorm how their agencies could respond. Afterwards Vice President JD Vance convened a phone call with some of the country's most influential technology executives, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and his leading competitors. Vance conveyed that the administration wanted a partnership in addressing frontier AI that supported innovation while balancing security concerns.“We know today's hot button thing is Mythos, but we know that's not going to be the last one,” an administration official involved in the discussions said, describing the call.That engagement represented a turnabout for a president who had returned to office banking on continued expansion of the American artificial intelligence sector to drive the country’s economic growth. As his AI czar, President Donald Trump chose David Sacks, a cheerleader… [TheTopNews] Read More.
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