Bessent Summoned Wall Street Leaders to Discuss Anthropic's New AI

Summary

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Fed Chair Jerome Powell urgently summoned leaders of systematically important banks to a meeting at the Treasury.
• The meeting was to alert bank CEOs to the potential future cyber risks posed by Anthropic's new AI model, "Mythos".
• Attending banks included Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs. JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon did not attend.
• The regulators' urgent action signals they view this new breed of AI-powered cyber attack as one of the biggest potential risks facing the financial industry.
• Anthropic's Mythos is a more powerful general-purpose model that significantly outperforms prior models on benchmarks like coding and reasoning.
• A key concern is that Mythos is capable of identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser when directed by a user.
• Anthropic is limiting the release of Mythos to a small group of trusted partners, including Amazon, Apple, and JPMorgan, as part of "Project Glasswing".
• This selective release strategy allows these partners to secure critical systems before similar AI models become widely available.
• The development suggests the AI race may be entering an era where progress is defined partly by what capabilities are held back due to security concerns.
• The narrative is centered on systemic risk and regulatory preparedness, not on specific investment opportunities or dislocations.