By Bo Erickson and Jessica Koscielniak
WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei arrived at the White House for talks on Friday, according to a Reuters witness, amid growing concerns about the artificial intelligence startup's new AI model and its threat to cybersecurity.
The meeting comes as the U.S. government and the Silicon Valley firm work through a dispute over how Anthropic's AI should be used. The disagreement came to a head in late February when U.S. President Donald Trump directed the government to stop using Anthropic, and the Pentagon said it would declare the startup a supply-chain risk.
The Trump administration, central bankers across the globe and industries are racing to get up to speed on Anthropic's model Mythos and its ability to supercharge complex cyberattacks. The banking industry, with its legacy technology systems, is particularly vulnerable. Government officials in at least three countries – the U.S., Canada and Britain – have met with top banking officials to discuss the threats posed by Mythos.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Amodei was slated to meet White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Axios reported earlier.
Announced on April 7, Mythos is first being deployed to a select group of companies as part of Anthropic's "Project Glasswing," a controlled initiative under which the organizations are permitted to use the unreleased Claude Mythos Preview model to search for cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
A White House official said earlier on Friday that the Trump administration continues to speak with government and industry, including working with AI labs to ensure their models help secure software vulnerabilities.
Any new technology that could be used by the government would require a period of evaluation for security, the official added.
Anthropic said earlier this week it was discussing Mythos with the Trump administration, according to co-founder Jack Clark, even after the Pentagon began to cut off business ties.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson and Jessica Koscielniak; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Caitlin Webber)
