What is Claude Mythos and what risks does it pose?

What is Claude Mythos and what risks does it pose?Just nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleLiv McMahon,Technology reporterandJoe Tidy,Cyber correspondent, BBC World ServiceReutersIn recent weeks, the AI world has been a-buzz following claims made by leading firm, Anthropic, regarding its new model, Claude Mythos.The company says it found the tool can outperform humans at some hacking and cyber-security tasks, which has prompted discussions by regulators, legislators and financial institutions about the dangers it could pose to digital services.Several tech giants have been given access to Mythos via an initiative called Project Glasswing, designed to strengthen resilience to Mythos itself.But others point out that it is in Anthropic's interests to suggest its tool has never-seen-before capabilities, meaning - as ever with AI - the job of distinguishing between justified claims and hype can be tricky.What is Claude Mythos?Mythos is one of Anthropic's latest models developed as part of its broader AI system called Claude. It encompasses the company's AI assistant and family of models, rivalling OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.It was revealed by Anthropic in early April as "Mythos Preview".Researchers who test how AI models handle particular requests or tasks, known as "red-teams", said in a report Mythos was "strikingly capable at computer security tasks".They found the tool could locate dormant bugs lurking in decades-old code and easily exploit them.So rather than make it widely available to Claude users, Anthropic gave 12 tech companies access via Project Glasswing, which it described as "an effort to secure the world's most critical software".They include cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services, device manufacturers Apple, Microsoft and Google, and chip-makers Nvidia and Broadcom.Crowdstrike, whose faulty software update caused a major global outage in July 2024, is also among the proje...