Anthropic has stoked fears about artificial intelligence more aggressively than any other major AI company. It has repeatedly urged governments to create “authority with teeth” to block unsafe AI models. On June 21, the government did exactly that, using export-control authority to force Anthropic to block access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5.

Some see the government’s move as poetic justice. But Anthropic may have lost a skirmish only to win the war. The government’s Mythos action was rushed, opaque, and legally dubious, not least because it relied on narrow export control authorities to ban the use of an American model by Americans at home. With industry already pining for a more predictable legal process, Anthropic could get exactly what it has wanted all along: a regime whereby the government must bless new AI models before the public can use them.