The Home Office had challenged a High Court ruling that the group’s proscription should be quashed.
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Palestine Action ban is lawful, Court of Appeal rules
‘Toy Story 5’ and the great debate over AI vs. childhood
Ari was not just a stuffed polar bear.
He was the constant companion to Kathy’s grandson Julian — sitting with him at restaurants, traveling by his side on family trips and occupying a special spot in the 4-year-old’s bedtime ritual.
Until the day Julian accidentally left Ari behind at Kathy’s house.
To keep Ari “alive” until we could return him, we sent Julian photos of Ari’s “new adventures” — taking tennis lessons, making cookies and tagging along on daily errands.
Stuffed animals are platforms for imagination.
This type of childhood play, however, may soon become extinct.
Today’s children are increasingly being offered playthings powered by artificial intelligence instead of traditional toys — interactive dolls and plushies that converse with kids, remember previous interactions, say “I love you” and sometimes even express sadness when switched off.
Some connect directly to the internet in unsafe ways; others are explicitly marketed as social companions.
This week, Disney’s “Toy Story 5” will confront this question directly: What happens when technology competes with imagination for children’s attention and affection?
As developmental scientists and educators, we believe this conversation could not come at a more important time.
This isn’t an argument against technology — AI will undoubtedly become part of children’s lives, schools and futures.
But young children develop emotional intelligence and mental agility through human relationships, hands-on exploration and imaginative play — not through responsive machines designed to maximize engagement or to simulate human interactions.
And the research increasingly suggests that the distinction matters.
In one of our studies, we examined what happened when parents and children played together using electronic toys.
When a shape sorter announced “square” or “triangle” on its own, parents spoke less, interacted less and engaged less naturally with their children.
The toy effectively replaced vital parts of the human interaction necessary for learning.
For young children, the chip can get in the way.
That’s crucial, because the work of early childhood is not simply preparation for book learning — it’s where children learn to become human.
Through conversations, pretend play and relationships, children develop language, empathy, self-regulation, curiosity and creativity.
A stuffed animal like Ari does not do the imaginative work for a child: The child supplies the voice, the story and the emotional meaning.
The toy supplies the safe place where children try out what they learned in the world beyond their bedroom door.
Digital toys and AI companions can change that equation.
Unlike traditional toys, many AI toys are designed to sustain attention and emotional attachment.
They’re like energy drinks, supplying sugary stimulation without nutrition.
Some repeatedly flatter children to encourage continued interaction.
Others blur the line between pretend friendship and simulated emotional dependence.
We should pause before allowing this dynamic to become the norm for preschoolers.
Our children will use technology. But we must ask whether we’re willing to outsource some of childhood’s most important developmental experiences to machines.
This concern extends beyond toys.
Several years ago, when we were part of a group of researchers who reviewed the 100 most-downloaded “educational” apps for preschoolers, we found that only a tiny fraction of them met basic standards for supporting meaningful learning.
Yet parents are routinely sold technology that claims to be educational simply because it’s interactive.
But interactivity alone is not education — and neither is adaptive interactivity that parrots back a child’s thoughts or extends her conversation.
Children need experiences that nurture curiosity rather than passive consumption or endless stimulation.
Education expert Rebecca Winthrop has warned that poorly designed technologies may even contribute to what she calls “cognitive stunting” or, we’d add, “curiosity stunting” — cutting off deep thinking, exploration and imagination.
The irony is that children themselves know what they need.
Give a young child a cardboard box, a blanket fort, a beloved stuffed animal or a collection of assorted figurines and he’ll build entire worlds.
Children don’t need digital toys or AI-generated affirmation and algorithmically optimized companionship.
They need people. They need time. They need play.
The conversations sparked by “Toy Story 5” shouldn’t focus on nostalgia for Woody and Buzz, but on a far more urgent debate — over the forces we should allow to shape the emotional lives of our youngest children.
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek is a professor of psychology at Temple University and author of “Einstein Never Used Flashcards.” Aimee Ketchum is a therapist and author of “The Early Childhood Promise.”
The US and Iran have agreed a deal. How soon could things go back to normal?
Experts warn the impact of the war will continue to affect the global economy for months to come.
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Congo reports record one-day increase in Ebola cases, month after outbreak’s reveal
KINSHASA, Congo — Congolese authorities have reported one of the highest increase in Ebola cases in one day, as weak contact tracing, insecurity and funding gaps continue to hinder the response a month after the outbreak was declared.
The Congolese Ministry of Health said Sunday 72 new cases were reported in a 24-hour period, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 782. This includes 181 confirmed deaths, after 32 new deaths were confirmed.
However, the number of cases in Congo is believed to be higher because the outbreak was confirmed on May 15, weeks after it is suspected to have begun, and the contact tracing coverage rate is at 56%, a sharp decrease from last week.
The latest Ebola outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which has no approved vaccine or treatment, unlike the Zaire virus, which was responsible for most of Congo’s past 16 outbreaks of the disease.
Fifty-six people have recovered, and the current fatality rate of the outbreak is 23%, the ministry said.
The World Health Organization said Sunday it is intensifying testing and contact tracing and treatment.
Africa’s top health body said the same day it is deploying technical expertise and supporting laboratory systems, active case finding and community engagement efforts to accelerate the response to the disease outbreak.
“We remain committed to supporting affected countries until transmission is stopped. We call on partners and donors to urgently mobilize resources to strengthen the response and save lives,” said the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or Africa CDC, Jean Kaseya.
The outbreak is concentrated in Congo’s eastern province of Ituri, which accounts for more than 90% of the cases. Cases have also been recorded in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, and have spread across the border to Uganda.
Nearly a million people have been displaced by conflict in Ituri, according to the U.N. humanitarian office, making contact tracing difficult as people flee attacks or move frequently in the vast province with dense forests, poor roads and remote villages that can take days to reach.
Tracing is also difficult among the thousands of artisanal miners who regularly move between remote sites in the mineral-rich region.
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Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal.
Real leadership can save Penn Station from its homeless plague, Mr. President
Penn Station doesn’t have to be a homeless-plagued disaster zone — just look at Grand Central Terminal.
Even before one vagrant’s stabbing rampage a week ago, local leaders shrugged off the issue, but New Yorkers (and New Jerseyans) have every right to ask why the city’s primary train station has to be a living room for mentally ill and homeless people.
A few years ago, the lower-level food court at Grand Central was a mess, with vagrants camping out at tables and washing their socks in the restroom.
Some restaurant owners threatened to withhold rent if management didn’t clean up the venue.
The MTA, which owns GCT, got the message and reorganized the food court; the area is now orderly and respectable (albeit with nowhere to sit).
New York’s laws prevent outright ejection of vagrants from public property, but that’s no excuse.
One key for Grand Central: closing for a few hours every night, a change that allowed management to make everyone leave.
Another: A single authority over the whole property, since the MTA owns the station and runs nearly all the train lines it serves, meaning clear accountability for policing and homeless outreach.
Penn’s managerial structure is almost as complex as its labyrinthine physical layout, which enables people to skulk in remote corridors.
Amtrak owns the station, but the LIRR and New Jersey Transit oversee their concourses; each authority can pass the buck: If everyone’s responsible, nobody’s is.
This mess calls for leadership, something New York and New Jersey politicians plainly can’t manage.
Happily, President Donald Trump has taken control of the planned massive reconstruction of Penn Station.
That work can make at least some interior changes that discourage vagrants from congregating, but it should bring management changes, too.
Put one central authority in charge of policing Penn; figure out how to close all areas for at least an hour or three overnight.
Heck, Mr. President, don’t wait on final rebuild plans to start cracking down: Begin setting Penn Station straight now.
Siggy Flicker wants $11.6M for her Hamptons home
One-time Real Housewife and Donald J. Trump appointee Siggy Flicker is selling her “renovated from the dunes up” Hamptons home for $11.6 million, preferring a place closer to the president, The Post has learned.
Flicker is bringing her own “Art of the Deal” approach to the sale, looking for a nearly $6 million profit even after rapid-fire price cuts since listing the home less than three months ago.
Flicker now spends most of her time in Florida at her Boca Raton residence, about a 35-minute drive to Trump’s Palm Beach estate, where she hobnobs with the 47th president and belongs to the Mar-a-Lago Club, which Trump calls “the world’s most celebrated private club.”
Flicker, who calls Trump a friend, was appointed by him to the overseeing body of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum soon after he took office a second time and purged Biden’s former appointees. Flicker is the Israeli-born daughter of a Holocaust survivor. She displays works of art in Hebrew, with one frame in the dining area showing the word “Ahava”, or “Love,” arranged in a pop-art style.
While many Hamptons’ home seekers prioritize private ocean access, outstanding views and whether the property lies south of Montauk Highway, Flicker brought her own potential make or break when looking at the home in late 2023. “Are these people Trump lovers?” she asked about the owners before moving forward with a purchase, according to a source close to her who asked not to be identified. Her offer came after being assured they were.
(Flicker declined to be interviewed; it isn’t clear if she would sell the home to a non-Trump lover.)
The 4,610-square-foot spread, which its listing describes as “newly renovated from the dunes up,” includes a pool with a waterfall, lots of decking and expansive water views, all on roughly one-third of an acre — or about the breadth of 1.5 Boeing 747 wingspans.
One thing is for sure; Flicker appears very eager to strike a deal. She put the property up for sale for $13 million and has since cut the price twice, by $1.4 million, with the latest reduction earlier this week, listing information shows.
Still, if she gets her current ask, Flicker will show a hefty paper profit on the $5.7 million she paid for the property less than three years ago, property records show.
The home is designed for openness, with sliding glass doors leading onto decks and 18-foot floor-to-ceiling second-story windows.
Five bedrooms include two primary suites with their own fireplaces, walk-in closets and spa-like full bathrooms. The three guest rooms all have en-suite bathrooms.
In addition to a great room, the house has exercise and media rooms and a wet bar — with a sink and running water making it easier for entertaining, plus mixing and serving drinks. A smart home system can control lighting, security, music, door locks and can dim the lights from any room. An attached garage can fit three cars.
Outside, a heated infinity-edged pool comes complete with a waterfall. For those who like their water saltier, a boardwalk leads to 80 feet of beachfront.
Flicker spent two years on “The Real Housewives of New Jersey,” starting in 2016. It was around that time that that she began ennobling Trump.
“I said to myself, ‘Wow, finally a non-politician who’s a great businessman. I’m going to give him a try,’” Flicker told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a wire service for Jewish-related news.
Israel refuses to leave Lebanon, vows to hit Iran ‘with all our might’ if Tehran attacks
Israel vowed on Monday it will continue rooting out Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and said it will hit Tehran with “all our might” if the clerical regime attacks – just hours after President Trump announced a deal to end the three-month-old war had been reached.
Defense Minister Israel Katz refused to say when Israeli forces would leave Lebanon, citing the security threats that terror cells pose to the Jewish State, and politicians across the spectrum have blasted Trump’s agreement.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I are leading a clear policy that determines that the IDF will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, without any time limit, to protect the border and Israeli communities from there against jihadist elements,” he said, as reported by Ynet.
Katz said such zones would be “cleared of .. all terror infrastructure, above and below ground, including the houses in the contact-line villages that served as terror outposts, will be destroyed.
Katz described the seizure of Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon as “one of the IDF’s greatest achievements in the War of Rebirth under the decisions and direction of the political echelon.”
“We will not compromise on Israel’s security interests and the protection of our citizens, and we will not withdraw from the security zones,” he added.
Katz also warned “if Iran attacks Israel due to events in Lebanon, we will attack it with all our might.”
Politicians across Israel have condemned the Trump-backed peace plan.
The agreement has not been seen publicly, but the White House on Friday described to reporters five points that are in the deal:
- Iran will destroy its highly enriched uranium
- Tehran will pledge never to obtain a nuclear weapon
- Economic relief will come after those first two steps are completed
- The Strait of Hormuz will be open immediately upon signing
- Iran must stop funding terrorist groups including Hezbollah
Benny Gantz, a former IDF chief, labeled the deal as a “strategic failure” while Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, blasted, “We are not partners to this agreement, which does not safeguard our security.”
“Israel is not subordinate to the United States. We are an independent and sovereign country,” Ben Gvir fumed.
“We must not withdraw from any territory [in Lebanon] that our fighters have captured.”
Left-wing politician Yair Golan described news of the deal as a “tough morning for Israel.”
“In one signature stroke, immense military achievements secured with the courage of our pilots and the blood of our fighters have been erased, while Netanyahu stood on the sidelines—weak, ill, isolated, and powerless,” he wrote on X.
Golan claimed the deal “throws a lifeline to the murderous regime in Tehran” but Trump has said the agreement will bring peace and security to the Middle East.
The memorandum of understanding is set to be signed in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday – and Iran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned the regime will not begin implementing it until then.
Iran is framing the deal as an American surrender – with the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters claiming it as a victory for the Islamic Republic, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
Broader negotiations on outstanding issues like Iran’s nuclear program would continue over the next 60 days, two senior Pakistani officials said earlier Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
With Post wires.
Historic Knicks NBA championship has New Yorkers dancing in the streets: ‘Unifying the world’
The Knicks have turned the Big Apple into the Big Party.
The NBA champs sent thousands into the streets after knocking off the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night, with everyone from MTA bus drivers to city firefighters joining the frenzy — while massive crowds sang along to Sinatra’s “New York, New York” in one monster celebration.
And that party’s just starting.
“I think it’s unmatchable,” West Village actor Katya Ferrer told The Post Sunday. “I saw someone today say it’s like a reverse 9/11. I’ve been in New York for 13 years and that collective experience is the closest thing to world peace I’ve ever experienced.
“It’s unifying the city,” she said. “It’s unifying the world. Everyone watched. Everyone was rooting for us.”
Now on tap is a ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes, city officials announced.
“It’s like a collective effervescence,” said Happy David, who does social media for Casa Magazines. “Everyone is in a great mood. Everyone complimenting each other on their merch.
“Everybody is in a celebratory mood,” she said. “It’s a gift to the neighborhood.”
The party started the second the Knicks pulled off a 94-90 win over the hated Spurs in San Antonio, with cheers erupting from watch parties — big and small — throughout the New York metro area and thousands upon thousands of fans taking to the streets to celebrate.
Knicks fans even took over the Frost Bank Center, the Spurs home court in San Antonio, turning the rival’s arena into a New York shindig.
It’s the first NBA title for the Knicks since 1973, and follows near misses in 1994 and 1999.
While New York sports fan bases are split in baseball, football and hockey loyalty, the Knicks stand alone as the city’s team, with the Nets still not gaining major traction despite their 2012 move to Brooklyn.
“Don’t forget, the Knicks have no competition,” one retired cop said. “The Yankees had the Mets. The Giants had the Jets. The Rangers had the Devils and the Islanders – everyone is a Knick fan.”
Even the less-traveled Westchester County Airport couldn’t escape Knicks fever, with dozens of frantic fans lining up outside the suburban airfield to welcome the team home Sunday morning.
“It was incredible,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Sunday. “I mean, it’s hard to believe it was real, but it’s beautiful to wake up to know yes it was, and we’re the champions.”
In Astoria, firefighters blasted “New York, New York” from their rigs, while a massive crowd sang along to Alicia Keys “Empire State of Mind” en masse in Manhattan.
An MTA bus driver was caught on viral video dancing in front of a mob of jubilant fans.
“Even the bus driver on duty decided to pull over & get JIGGY!” one X poster wrote. “New York Knicks have brought back the energy to this city. Hopefully he doesn’t lose his job.”
Now-collectible editions of The Post flew off the shelfs throughout the five boroughs and the ‘burbs.
“One person bought all!” a worker at a deli Dry Harbor Avenue in Queens said Sunday. “Everyone wanted to buy today. They went crazy.”
Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson earned Finals MVP honors, but the series had plenty of heroes — including forward OG Anunoby, whose miraculous tip-in in Game 4 at MSG clinched that game and erased what was earlier a commanding 29-point Spurs lead.
Thursday’s parade guarantees that the party ain’t ending anytime soon.
“It will be a tremendous turnout,” said a retired NYPD supervisor who worked the mind-blowing New York Rangers and Yankees parades after they won national titles in the 1990s.
The parade will kick off at Battery Park at 10 a.m. and proceed north on Broadway — aka the Canyon of Heroes — and wind up at City Hall for a celebration hosted by the mayor.
“I think I’ll take the day off to go,” lifelong Knicks fan Andy Yu said of the upcoming parade. “I’ll just scream my lungs out during the parade when the bus [of players] goes past and seeing the trophy in person. It will be pretty special.”
Queens resident Victor Abreau said he’ll also play hooky.
“I’m calling out from work,” he said. “We are going to the parade, and we’re going to enjoy watching our city finally be part of the world championship. New York is finally back on top.”
City and police officials have not released estimates on how many fans they expect to show up, but past parades have erupted into citywide celebrations, including more than 4.5 million for the 1991 welcome celebration for returning Gulf War troops.
Other Big Apple parades — including for the Apollo 11 astronauts in 1969, astronaut John Glenn in 1962, Gen. Douglas MacArthur after his dismissal by Harry Truman in 1951 and Charles Lindbergh in 1927 after his famed flight — drew as many as 4 million spectators.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona, Joe Marino and Carl Campanile
Hochul’s biggest failure in the budget deal she struck with NY lawmakers
As part of her budget deal, Gov. Kathy Hochul managed to get lawmakers to agree to various reasonable demands unrelated to how much state government spends.
The governor was pushing back against personal-injury lawyers, environmentalists and NIMBY activists who’d made it tougher for New Yorkers to afford auto insurance, energy and housing, respectively.
Members of the Senate and Assembly haven’t worried enough about staged auto accidents, rolling blackouts or housing scarcity, so Hochul did.
If anything, she should’ve prosecuted a fiercer public case against affordability’s enemies and their Albany enablers.
But as for the actual budget — i.e., the state’s financial strategy for coming years?
That’s another story.
Hochul essentially put state spending on autopilot when she issued her proposal in January, allowing already-bloated programs to swell further.
Wall Street had a better-than-expected 2025, so more tax revenue than forecast rolled into state coffers.
That allowed Hochul to avoid economizing seemingly anywhere.
Most of the budget now goes to just two areas: New York’s costliest-in-the-nation Medicaid program and aid for its costliest-in-the-nation school districts.
Both have continued growing: Lawmakers approved a 12% hike in the state’s portion of Medicaid spending and a 5% rise for schools.
The Citizens Budget Commission, whose proprietary decoder ring lets them see through Albany’s budget gimmicks and accounting tricks, warned that the core of state spending was up nearly 10%, more than double last year’s already-high inflation rate.
When the dust settled, the budget’s theme, if anything, was “never say nay.”
Hochul and state lawmakers gave retroactive pension increases to the state’s public-employee unions, which will increase state and local costs more than $500 million annually.
They offered extra aid to ease fiscal distress in New York City, Buffalo, Albany, Yonkers’ public schools and elsewhere, so they too could avoid economizing (or, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani would bemoan nearly any spending reduction, suffering “austerity”).
A billion dollars in “energy rebate” checks are headed to voters’ mailboxes before Election Day. And so on.
As the budget was being passed, Hochul and lawmakers alike said the plan covered $269 billion in spending, including expenses funded with federal aid.
That’s a striking amount, twice what it was just 13 years ago.
Republicans gave their rote, insincere complaints about the budget’s size, even though they’ve attacked Hochul for trimming some of the most wasteful state programs and not spending more on others.
Yet the price tag ended up even higher, at $277 billion, after Hochul administration wonks accounted for more expected federal aid and other changes.
Even if the good times keep rolling, officials say, come January the governor will need to address a $6 billion (and growing) mismatch between annual revenues and expenses.
And that assumes roaring capital gains and low unemployment continue.
Two big problems: First, tax receipts can stop growing, and even shrink, if financial markets hit choppy waters.
Hochul to her credit has increased the state’s cash reserves, but she’s also left the state more reliant than ever on taxes coming from a narrow sliver of high earners.
Those tax payments can dry up rapidly in a bear market.
Albany still risks needing to make substantial cuts or impose economically destructive tax increases, or both, in a deep or sustained downturn.
Congress dulled New York’s fiscal pain during the Great Recession and the pandemic with a deluge of borrowed money, especially for the public schools where teachers unions often have a greater say over operations than the elected school boards.
But that’s the other big assumption that’s crumbling: The federal government itself is on a collision course with fiscal reality.
Congress last year collected just 75 cents for every dollar it spent.
After more than two decades of deficit spending, interest on the national debt alone is expected to top $1 trillion this year.
Put another way, the first 19 cents of every dollar the feds get from any source — taxes, tariffs, everything in between — will go out the door to service debt payments, which will keep on growing.
Albany is counting on spending at least $88 billion in federal funds, mostly for its uniquely large Medicaid program, in each budget between now and 2030.
New York shouldn’t just assume it’ll get another federal bailout if necessary.
It should be economizing, today, in preparation for a possible drop in state tax receipts and, longer-term, for the guaranteed decline in federal aid.
Two years ago Hochul warned lawmakers they couldn’t spend like there’s no tomorrow “because tomorrow always comes.”
Whether tomorrow arrives first in New York or in Washington, Albany must be ready.
Ken Girardin is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Exclusive | Anthropic downplays security risks of ‘Mythos’ and ‘Fable’ AI models after ban –
Anthropic is downplaying risks that led the White House to ban foreign use of its powerful “Mythos” and “Fable” AI models – and US officials claim it’s proof that CEO Dario Amodei has a one-sided, self-serving approach when it comes to cybersecurity.
Late last week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reportedly alerted the Trump administration that its researchers had managed to “jailbreak” Fable – or bypass its safety guardrails – in a way that could threaten national security.
The White House responded by slapping Mythos and Fable with export controls – restrictions that prevent the models from being used by foreign nationals and customers outside the US. Anthropic, in turn, responded by taking Mythos and Fable offline entirely.
That’s despite the fact that Anthropic claimed the flaw was a “narrow potential jailbreak” that was not unique to Fable, adding that it disagreed with the White House’s handling of the matter.
The company’s seemingly contradictory words and actions drew scorn from Trump officials who noted Anthropic has spent months stoking fears about potential AI doomsday scenarios.
“They seem obsessed with safety for everyone except themselves,” a senior Trump administration official told The Post. “If I was an Anthropic investor, I would be extremely concerned.”
A second senior official with knowledge of the situation said the Trump administration had heard from “nearly half a dozen” companies that raised concerns about Fable before it took action – not just Amazon. The official declined to share which companies.
“Had Anthropic taken it seriously and, rather than dismissing it as isolated, moved to fix or pause access, this never would have happened,” the second US official said.
Key administration leaders felt they couldn’t trust Anthropic to manage their concerns – and those worries only grew after the call between Trump officials and Amodei on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Company leaders reportedly pushed back on requests that they work with government experts.
As recently as last week, Amodei published a controversial blog post declaring that the US government “should have the power to block” AI models that it deemed too dangerous.
A source close to Anthropic claimed the Trump administration contacted key officials on Friday and gave them just 90 minutes to pull its models offline.
The source also pushed back on reports that said Amodei was difficult to reach, asserting that both he and other senior staffers were available within 15 minutes of the White House’s outreach.
“There was no refusal to fix an issue. We were not presented with any details,” the source said.
Anthropic is eager to get its models back online and is working around the clock to address the administration’s concerns, the source added.
In a blog post, Anthropic claimed it had little choice but to take down the models in order to comply with the export controls and noted that some of its own employees are foreign nationals, meaning they would have been unable to work on the model.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Cyber Director Sean Cairncross were among the officials who participated in frantic discussions with Anthropic leadership.
White House AI adviser David Sacks, a vocal critic of Anthropic, said he was “frankly bewildered that Anthropic hasn’t wanted to comply with safety requests that it previously said were its highest priority.”
“The Admin’s hope now is that Anthropic remediates the safety issue, the export control is lifted, and Fable goes back into general release,” Sacks wrote on X.
The White House’s decision was partly motivated by concerns that a China-linked group had surreptitiously accessed Mythos, Semafor reported. Anthropic already bars access to its products in China.
Anthropic initially made Mythos available to about 40 top corporations, including Apple and JPMorgan, as part of a pilot program, warning it could cause a wave of devastating cyberattacks if given a wide release. Less than two months later, it released what it claimed to be the “safe” version of Mythos, dubbed Fable 5, for public use.
“If you’re Anthropic, what other outcome did you expect? You keep telling people your work is dangerous, you constantly talk in public about how you want the government to stop you, well, congratulations,” said Perry Metzger, chairman of Alliance for the Future, a Washington, DC-based AI policy group.
Since April, Anthropic executives also have publicly claimed that “Claude Mythos” AI model was too dangerous to be released to the public and argued it would be “good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause” development.
Amodei himself has a penchant for making terrifying predictions about AI – including that it has a 25% chance of destroying humanity. He has warned that AI could cause national unemployment to spike to 20% and said President Trump’s decision to allow sale of advanced AI chips to China was like “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.”
Ben Narasin, a general partner and founder of Tenacity Venture Capital, said Anthropic’s dire warnings about AI had backfired.
“He has become way too predictable with constantly crying wolf,” Narasin said. “All of a sudden, you got what you asked for, but you didn’t realize you didn’t really want it.”
At the same time, Narasin said Anthropic may still emerge from this latest dustup as a winner.
“It’ll inconvenience Dario and it’ll inconvenience OpenAI, but it’ll massively hinder any new competitor that comes along,” Narasin said. “So, he just built a new fortress wall protecting the castle.”
The warnings have sparked allegations from Sacks and others that Anthropic was using fear-mongering tactics as a method of “regulatory capture” – or crafting regulations in a way that benefits its interest at the expense of rivals.
The dire warnings come, skeptics note, even as Anthropic has been scrambling to supercharge its growth.
Earlier this month, the firm confidentially filed for an IPO ahead of its archrival OpenAI. Anthropic cofounder Daniela Amodei, Dario’s sister, has said the company aims to tap the public markets for cash to wrangle massive amounts of computing power in data center deals with the likes of SpaceX and Google.