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A newsletter by the AI Policy Institute · Washington D.C.
JUN 18, 2026 · BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

WH demands jailbreak-proof Fable | AI CEOs back US coalition at G7 | Guardrails PAC takes on pro-AI money

The White House made blocking all jailbreaks its condition for restoring Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 exports, a bar researchers say no frontier system can clear, even as Anthropic employees say the company is being singled out. Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis and Sam Altman backed a U.S.-led AI coalition at the G7 lunch in Evian-les-Bains, with Altman floating a global standards forum, as Trump told reporters the Anthropic talks are "going fine." Democratic operatives launched the Guardrails Alliance, a $5 million super PAC built to counter Leading the Future, the pro-AI group whose budget tops $100 million, ahead of the midterms. A separate White House directive forced Anthropic to cut SK Telecom from Claude Mythos over alleged Chinese ties, days before the broader export takedown landed.

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Today's Top Stories

White House makes blocking all jailbreaks the bar for restoring Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5

Trump administration officials told Wired that Anthropic must address the alleged vulnerabilities in Fable 5, the guardrailed version of Mythos 5, before the export controls that took the models offline are lifted. Anthropic has called the concerns overblown and the jailbreak effects minimal, a position it reiterated to the Commerce Department and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross in a Monday technical meeting, while independent cybersecurity experts say preventing all jailbreaks on frontier models is not possible. Separately, Anthropic employees told the New York Times they feared being singled out, noting that rival firms with comparable models have drawn no similar scrutiny, after the order suspended access to both models for all foreign nationals.

Read at Wired ↗ · Read at NYT ↗

Guardrails Alliance launches to counter pro-AI super PAC money in the midterms

Democratic operatives Shaunna Thomas and Leah Hunt-Hendrix unveiled a super PAC Thursday, the Guardrails Alliance, backed by tech workers, labor unions and left-leaning groups, the New York Times reported. The group has raised $5 million across the PAC and a linked nonprofit, with a goal of $15 million this cycle, and casts itself as a populist, small-dollar counterweight to Leading the Future, the super PAC favoring lighter AI regulation, whose political budget tops $100 million. Guardrails said its backers include the American Federation of Teachers, the Working Families Party, former Indeed CEO Chris Hyams and former OpenAI researcher David Farhi.

Read at NYT ↗

Trump administration shapes AI through a 'shadow' policy with no formal rules

Despite entering office vowing to get government out of the AI industry's way, the White House is steering the sector through case-by-case interventions rather than regulation, Axios reported. Export controls, voluntary testing frameworks and procurement guidelines have become the de facto building blocks of its approach, operating outside the formal rulemaking process and leaving companies little published guidance. With Congress frozen on AI ahead of the midterms despite a bipartisan House safety bill, the administration is taking the lead through executive action.

Read at Axios ↗

White House ordered Anthropic to revoke SK Telecom's Mythos access days before broader export action

A separate White House directive in early June told Anthropic to cut off South Korean telecom giant SK Telecom from Claude Mythos over alleged ties to Chinese entities, Wired reported. SK Telecom had received Mythos access through Anthropic's Project Glasswing rollout earlier in the month and immediately lost it after Anthropic complied with the order. Washington did not threaten broader export controls on the model at that time, with the public takedown order following days later.

Read at Wired ↗

Amodei, Hassabis and Altman back U.S.-anchored AI coalition at G7 lunch as Trump says Anthropic talks 'going fine'

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis endorsed a U.S.-led international AI coalition during the G7 working lunch in Evian-les-Bains, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman supporting the same framing, per CNBC. Altman, who sat between Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, proposed an international forum modeled on the Financial Stability Board to set global AI standards. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who chaired the FSB from 2011 to 2018, likened the proposed forum to the FSB, per Semafor. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Secretary of State Marco Rubio also attended. Speaking to reporters before the lunch, Trump said negotiations with Anthropic are "going fine," per WSJ.

Read at CNBC ↗ · Read at Semafor ↗ · Read at WSJ ↗

Newsletter archive

2026-06-18

WH demands jailbreak-proof Fable | AI CEOs back US coalition at G7 | Guardrails PAC takes on pro-AI money

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2026-06-17

EU-U.S. trusted partner | States slam preemption | Fresh AI guardrails momentum

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2026-06-16

Anthropic talks stall | Cyber vets protest ban | DOJ calls xAI vital | Data center investors probed

Read this issue →
Browse the full archive →

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