Welcome to the AGI era of AI governance

It's a one-way door and we weren't ready for it.

This post originally appeared in Interconnects.

“The key to understanding this era is that these events between Anthropic and the federal government, which seem like two of the biggest events in the history of AI policy, are just the starting gun to what is to come.”

The executive branch of the United States forcing Anthropic to turn off access — both internally and externally — to their latest Claude 5 Mythos/Fable models is the starting gun of a new era in AI governance. This is the era defining AI agents that effectively complement human workers, unlocking new ways of working and new domains of applying existing tools. The models will keep getter better at a rapid pace, forcing more governance challenges.

An unstable equilibrium at the frontier

On Friday, just after markets closed, the government reached out to Anthropic to force them to suspend access to their model to any foreign national or user abroad. When writing this, the saga is still unfolding. It is likely that Anthropic and the Government reach an agreement to re-release the model, but it is a messy indicator of new types of AI governance. The White House was tipped off to the risk by Anthropic’s largest financial and technology partner, Amazon.

These dynamics are very complex, and while the picture is incomplete I will only offer commentary on what will likely be a lasting opinion of the saga: