Mythos has struck fear into governments around the world. That’s why Spain wants “early access” to see what happens

Spain wants to have access to Claude Mythos Preview, the AI ​​model it is making shake the world. The vice president and Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, has made clear that the European Union needs “early access” to Mythos to be able to assess what vulnerabilities European financial systems have. For the minister, “Europe cannot be a second-class region.”

Bad news: today, at least for the most powerful AI startups on the planet, it is.

There is not only fear in the banking sector. Although the alarm was initially raised by the financial sector, the Spanish Government warns that Mythos’ ability to find “back doors” affects practically all economic sectors. We are talking about threats that extend to critical infrastructure and essential elements for the functioning of any modern country. Anthropic itself has already made its fears clear: they did not want to launch the model publicly to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

The AI ​​Act is a problem. The European AI Law was widely celebrated among Eurolegislators for being the world’s first major regulation about this technology. In reality, it has become clear that it has been a shot in the foot for EU countries, which have often seen how the most advanced AI models could not be used on our borders because they could violate this regulation or others. like DMA/DSA. This regulation forces companies to comply with strict requirements if they want to deploy especially advanced models, considered “high risk.” And Mythos is just that, so the AI ​​Act is precisely what would prevent it from being used in Europe.

So they want to delay its application. Euroofficials have realized their mistake, and are now trying to buy time because technology moves (much) faster than bureaucracy. Their proposal is simple: delay until December 2027 the application of these obligations for “high risk” models like Mythos. In this way, this model could operate in Europe without having to go through these strict controls for another year and a half.

Milestone or marketing maneuver? While the Eurogroup and the ECB analyze the risks with those responsible for financial supervision, in El Mundo quote to a group of critical voices who suggest that Anthropic’s maneuver could be a distraction strategy. The thesis is simple: the company has a clear computing capacity problem, and is not able to satisfy demand. Their solution: argue that Mythos is too powerful to avoid having to release it publicly, which would cause an avalanche of petitions.

Coordination. Body added that in this case it is important that the request for “early access” is coordinated and comes from the EU as a block: “We Member States cannot each go on our own in an uncoordinated manner to try to access this software to this model. We need the umbrella of the Commission and a coordinated approach.”

AI as a geopolitical weapon. What this has shown is that little by little access to advanced AI models is becoming a geopolitical weapon that is straining relations between Washington and Brussels. Anthropic is expanding access to Mythos to some institutions for example in the United Kingdoma traditional ally of the US. However, trade relations with Europe they are still complicatedespecially after the tariffs with which the Trump administration wanted to change the rules of the game.

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