Finance ministers and top bankers raise serious concerns about Mythos AI model

Finance ministers, central bankers and financiers have expressed serious concerns about a powerful new artificial intelligence (AI) model that could undermine the security of financial systems.

The development of the Claude Mythos model by Anthropic has led to crisis meetings, after it found vulnerabilities in every major operating system and browser.

Experts have warned that the model potentially has an unprecedented ability to identify and exploit cybersecurity weaknesses.

The Canadian finance minister François-Philippe Champagne told the BBC that Mythos had been discussed extensively by his peers at the key International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Washington DC this week.

"Certainly it is serious enough to warrant the attention of all the finance ministers... The difference with the Strait of Hormuz is that we know where it is and we know how large it is. The issue that we're facing with Anthropic is that it's an unknown, unknown.

It requires a lot of attention so that we have safeguards, and we have processes in place to make sure that we ensure the resiliency of our financial system".

Top bankers are to be given access to the model in advance to test out their systems.

The chief executive of Barclays CS Venkatakrishnan told the BBC: "it's serious enough that people have to worry. We have to understand it better, and we have to understand the vulnerabilities that are being exposed and fix them quickly".

He added that "this is what the new world is going to be" referencing a much more connected financial system, with both opportunities and vulnerabilities.

While developer Anthropic has said the model has already exposed multiple security vulnerabilities in some critical operating systems, financial systems and web browsers, governments and banks are being offered access in advance of its public release to help protect their own systems.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey also told the BBC the development had to be taken very seriously: "we are having to look very carefully now what this latest AI development could mean for the risk of cyber crime.

There is a development of AI, of modelling, which makes it easier to detect existing vulnerabilities in, sort of core IT systems, and then obviously cyber criminals that the bad actors could seek to exploit them."

The US Treasury confirmed it had raised the issue with its major banks encouraging them to test out their systems, before any public release of Mythos by Anthropic.

Financial industry sources indicated that another prominent US AI company could soon release a similarly powerful model but without the same safeguards.