On July 1, July 2 -- For 20 days, the most capable AI model Anthropic had ever released was unavailable to most of the world, pulled from servers by a directive from the U.S. Commerce Department over three words: "fix this code."

or a government overreach into how AI models handle security research - depends almost entirely on whom you ask. The central disagreement was never formally adjudicated. It was negotiated around.

The timeline begins June 9, when Anthropic launched Fable 5 and the more powerful Mythos 5, marking what the company described as a significant capability advance from its previous lineup. Three days later, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sent a letter to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei invoking the Bureau of Industry and...