Fable is coming back: Federal government lifts export controls on Anthropic AI model

Anthropic can now bring back Fable. The U.S. Commerce Department is lifting the export controls it placed on both AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, more than two weeks ago.

In a letter sent on Tuesday to Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick writes that “Anthropic has agreed to proactively detect and address security risks associated with the models” and “to work diligently with the U.S. government on protocols and standards and releases for Mythos, Fable, and future models.” According to the letter, Anthropic also agrees to inform the U.S. government of any malicious activity. This now frees Anthropic to make Fable available to its users once again.

What happened?

On June 12, the U.S. government imposed export controls on Fable, Anthropic’s most powerful consumer model yet, three days after its launch, because of what was then described as a “jailbreak.” Because Anthropic had no way to ensure that only U.S. citizens could use Fable, the consumer version of the more unrestricted Mythos model, it had no choice but to shut down access for everyone, including the small group of organizations that had access to Mythos.

The exact nature of the jailbreak that triggered this episode remains unclear, but Fable has been unavailable since then, and the government’s imposition of these restrictions caused nervousness across the industry, especially at a time when Chinese companies are launching increasingly competitive models.

The administration had already lifted some restrictions on the Mythos model on Friday, June 26, making it once again available to about companies and agencies that focus on cybersecurity and infrastructure.

Anthropic, Fable, and the US government

• The Pentagon’s Anthropic problem is every enterprise’s AI problem
• Fable 5 vs Opus 4.8: The real stakes, not the spec sheet
• Federal government orders Anthropic to pull Fable 5 and Mythos 5, three days after launch
• Fable 5 and Mythos 5 remain suspended: “The ball is in Anthropic’s court”
• The Anthropic Fable mess, explained

Anthropic and the U.S. government already had a strained relationship after Anthropic refused to remove its contractual safeguards against mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons for the U.S. Department of War. In return, the Department of War designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, effectively banning all contractors and suppliers to the agency from using its services. A number of legal challenges upheld at least part of this designation at the Department of War, but allowed other agencies to continue using Anthropic’s services.

While the two situations are not directly linked, it’s hard not to read the Fable controls as an extension of this existing animosity between Anthropic and the Trump administration (and in part, this seems personal as well). Since imposing export controls on Fable, however, the relationship between Anthropic and the U.S. government has slowly thawed, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his staff have met with a rotating group of Anthropic representatives.