Anthropic Walks Back Policy That Could Have ‘Sabotaged’ AI Researchers Using Claude

Published 11 June 2026 · tech

Anthropic is backtracking on a policy that would have covertly limited competitors from using its new AI model, Claude Fable 5, to develop other AI

Anthropic is backtracking on a policy that would have covertly limited competitors from using its new AI model, Claude Fable 5, to develop other AI models. The company changed course after the move received significant backlash from the AI research community. “We’re changing Fable 5’s safeguards for frontier LLM development to make them visible,” Anthropic said in a statement to WIRED. “We made the wrong tradeoff and we apologize for not getting the balance right.” Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, a version of its latest AI model with additional safety guardrails designed to prevent misuse, earlier this week. Some of the safeguards Anthropic decided on were unsurprising: The company said it would reroute users who asked questions about cybersecurity, biology, or chemistry to a less capable AI model to reduce the chances of someone using the advanced AI to carry out a cyberattack or build a bioweapon. But for researchers trying to use Claude Fable 5 for frontier AI development, Anthropic outlined a different approach.

The firm would deliberately degrade the model’s performance in ways that were invisible to the user. The move would effectively sabotage researchers trying to use Claude to train competing AI models, which Anthropic explicitly bans in its terms of service. Got a Tip? Are you a current or former Anthropic employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at mzeff.88. Anthropic now says it’s changing course, and that Claude Fable 5’s safeguards for AI development will be visible to users. If the company suspects a user is trying to use Claude to build a highly capable AI it will alert them that it’s either refusing the request, or rerouting the user to a less capable model. Anthropic reversed the policy after it received fierce backlash from the AI research community.

Anthropic has already taken steps to limit competitors from using Claude to build closed and open source AI models, but critics say that quietly degrading the model’s performance for certain users went a step too far. Claude’s coding agent has become a favored tool among developers, including those working on open-source AI research projects, and researchers tell WIRED that the company’s latest policy could have led to a troubling future in which only a handful of leading AI labs could perform advanced AI research. Dean Ball, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and a former advisor to the White House on AI, wrote in a post on X that “degrading performance on ML research *without telling the user* is shockingly hostile and a terrible look.” He continued in another post that the “secret sabotage” policy undermines Anthropic’s overall stance, because it limits AI researchers from collaborating on AI safety.