European Finance Ministers Seek Access to Mythos to Prepare Defenses
European finance ministers are pressuring Anthropic to grant local businesses access to the Mythos AI model, fearing digital attacks and falling behind their US counterparts.
“Europe needs to respond,” Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo told reporters on Monday before a meeting of Eurogroup finance ministers in Brussels. He stated that the EU must determine “how we can defend ourselves, ensure our companies have access to these models, and protect businesses from potential risks.”
Ministers will discuss the issue on Monday, as concerns grow that the AI model could trigger unprecedented digital attacks if it falls into the wrong hands. However, European companies have yet to gain access to Mythos, preventing them from assessing the potential impact of the unreleased tool.
Cuerpo warned that Mythos and other new models could “discover vulnerabilities or backdoors in almost all of our institutions – not just in finance and business, but across all sectors.”
To this end, he advocated that Europe consider “regulatory and legislative tools, such as the AI Act” – the EU’s legal framework for AI development.
Sources revealed that Cuerpo reiterated this position at the meeting. They said that Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis acknowledged the seriousness of the issue and that finance ministers would need to discuss it again at future meetings.
Sources also said that ministers requested more reliable information, complaining that Europe can currently only assess risks based on rumors.
European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos emphasized the need for preventative measures to protect European payment systems from any digital vulnerabilities that Mythos might expose, while speaking to the European Parliament’s economic committee.
These technologies “should focus on identifying flaws in operating systems,” he said. But he added that if malicious actors gain access to these vulnerabilities, “it could cause many problems.”