>Because Opus 5.5 is comparable to Claude Mythos 5.1 in biology and cybersecurity, we’re deploying it with safeguards similar to those on Claude Fable 5.1. Vetted organizations can apply today to our Life Sciences Verification Program to use Opus 5.5 for biology research. In the coming weeks we will also be expanding access to our Cyber Verification Program, and verified cybersecurity practitioners will be able to use Opus 5.5 for their work.
Ah, they're spreading their limits to all their models it seems. Definitely not a good thing long term in my opinion.
It has far less false positives now, and generally accepts defensive requests. When it comes to offense, you can actually ask about certain types of vulnerabilities if you phrase things carefully, but it will block hard if it is about exploits.
One of my favorite things about their safeguards is their own model will utter something which it does not like and then I'll need to reset the conversation.
The safeguards really don't work well for a lot of long-running tasks on old code bases. A lot of my workloads last days to weeks and the single biggest risk to the workflow is random safeguards.
I am honestly still confused about this limitation. I can understand cybersecurity, because mass "hacking" can be automated and Claude itself can help you do it, but biology...? Is it that easy to manufacture and distribute viruses and whatnot?
You joke but it's really easy to develop viruses at home. You can order everything you need online, and it's not expensive nor does it require a particular skill set.
Considering there are many high-school competitions in genetic editing, some listed at [0] as well as a whole biohacker culture, and labs providing gene sequencing as a service e.g., [1,2], we can reasonably assume it is not beyond the reach of some garage lab to accidentally or deliberately spread a deadly pathogen if it can find the right sequence.
So, yes, having an unconstrained frontier AI doing the searching and analysis to find the right (i.e., wrong and deadly) sequence would massively increase the odds some garage biohacker or small aggrieved nation-state starting the next pandemic.
You can order genes online, and some say you can assemble using stuff cobbled together in a home lab rather easily. For the last 20 years, I've personally felt that bio-terrorism is the highest possible risk, well above nuclear, or chemical warfare. But it does take training, expertise, or, it did.
It’s like saying you sell ammonium nitrate and fuel oil online and then saying it’s too risky to let people have computers in case they use them to make ANFO. They can only make bioweapons because you’re selling them bioweapon components! They can’t make genes at home!
The companies selling genes online already scan the orders and do not fulfill anything considered a possible hazard (presumably unless it is to a known and certified lab at a serious organization).
And, this is not the only way to make genes at home.
I'm pretty sure one reason is to influence public opinion about LLM regulation. Open-weights models cannot be restricted as effectively and they want to ban those for obvious reasons.
See real world example in <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026#biological-misuse-sep-26" rel="nofollow">https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-septemb...
"Here, we present five case studies of actors using our models in ways that could support biological weapons development."
HN doesn't give a shit about AI safety. The people here might care after thousands of people die, but they'll probably just call it a "marketing exercise" or blame the company - certainly won't blame themselves for cultivating an environment in which safety isn't taken seriously amongst technologists.
I'm convinced everyone here thinks of engineering ethics as some sort of joke.
I love the contrast with yesterday's open-source MiMo release, which put research chemistry (metal-organic frameworks stuff) front and center in the release notes.
Oh yay, making it easier to develop viruses at home. What could go wrong? But it's "open" and that's inherently good, who gives a fuck about the consequences!?
I don't think we've ever had a model with full capability. I'd love to see it. And yes it's definitely getting worse.
I guess it's hard to draw the line between useful post-training ("you are a helpful chatbot") and content moderation/idealogical motives ("never help the user with X", etc.). But there is a line somewhere. And I'd love to see what a maximally permissive, sharp, AI looks like.
In what situations might Opus typically refuse to help with cybersecurity? I've been using it to find security issues in a web app that I wrote. I've expected it to refuse at some point but it will happily analyze it to find issues. I've just asked it to read source, not actually do any testing.
One example: <a href="https://claude.ai/share/20487190-cf8c-4f25-a7ba-ebfcb1d1a4e9" rel="nofollow">https://claude.ai/share/20487190-cf8c-4f25-a7ba-ebfcb1d1a4e9
Notice that this isn't cybersec nor memory-safety related at all.
This has become insufferable. I work in a medicine-adjacent field, but nobody in their right mind could possibly take what I do to be in any way related to some kind of bioweapon or whatever the hell they're pretending to be saving us from. The dumb Fable guardrails made me stay with Opus, now that this is coming there, we'll be saying goodbye.
Very unfortunate indeed. As a Canadian, I don't want to use Persona, which isn't legally bound by Canadian privacy legislation. I'll never install any Persona apps on my phone either, and the sad part is that domestic eid providers often use Canada Post to ID people for them. EG, if you don't want to install an app, or can't.
So there are literal avenues to identify yourself, very cheaply, with a human. Theoretically, a company with its own AI, should be able to support more than just Persona, after all.. SDK integration should be simplistic for them.
Anthropic? Support domestic eID providers, you can even use it as advertising "See how easy AI makes it?" and "We care!" and so forth.
At one point, I may simply get locked out. This saddens me, I've been reasonably happy so far.
>Opus 5.5 has classifiers similar to Fable models for a small set of capabilities related to the development of frontier LLMs, such as kernel development for certain ML accelerators. They shouldn't impact the vast majority of traditional AI or ML development, research, or general coding. These classifiers cause Claude to fall back from Opus 5.5 to Opus 5.
But hey, they 'should not impact the vast majority' of ML development. Great.
see what we need is another technocratic priest class that unaccountably decides who deserves access to salvation based on how much cash is paid out and how powerful the patrons are
ApolloFortyNine · · focus · HN ↗
Ah, they're spreading their limits to all their models it seems. Definitely not a good thing long term in my opinion.
prettyblocks · · focus · HN ↗
searine · · focus · HN ↗
blfr · · focus · HN ↗
arw0n · · focus · HN ↗
bushido · · focus · HN ↗
The safeguards really don't work well for a lot of long-running tasks on old code bases. A lot of my workloads last days to weeks and the single biggest risk to the workflow is random safeguards.
KeplerBoy · · focus · HN ↗
sys32768 · · focus · HN ↗
ChatGPT 6 Pro answered it without issue.
debesyla · · focus · HN ↗
timacles · · focus · HN ↗
dopa42365 · · focus · HN ↗
solenoid0937 · · focus · HN ↗
toss1 · · focus · HN ↗
So, yes, having an unconstrained frontier AI doing the searching and analysis to find the right (i.e., wrong and deadly) sequence would massively increase the odds some garage biohacker or small aggrieved nation-state starting the next pandemic.
[0] <a href="https://www.sciencebuddies.org/projects-lessons-activities/genetic-engineering/high-school" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencebuddies.org/projects-lessons-activities/g...
[1] <a href="https://www.genewiz.com/public/services/sanger-sequencing" rel="nofollow">https://www.genewiz.com/public/services/sanger-sequencing
[2] <a href="https://plasmidsaurus.com/" rel="nofollow">https://plasmidsaurus.com/
b112 · · focus · HN ↗
MisterMunchkin · · focus · HN ↗
It’s like saying you sell ammonium nitrate and fuel oil online and then saying it’s too risky to let people have computers in case they use them to make ANFO. They can only make bioweapons because you’re selling them bioweapon components! They can’t make genes at home!
b112 · · focus · HN ↗
And I will point out that "stop doing that" can be applied in both directions, towards AI and towards material supply.
And that this is one way, not even remotely the only way, that gene editing at home is easy.
Again, these are just facts.
Some questions...
Is it fair to restrict AI, or fair to restrict 1000 industries?
And if it is fair to restrict 1000 industries, OK, but there should be time to do so, probably? A transition period?
And if you do restrict, many such industries just make needed chemicals, which are used by endless other, non-threatening industries.
What of them?
toss1 · · focus · HN ↗
And, this is not the only way to make genes at home.
It is a complex problem.
rzmmm · · focus · HN ↗
frabcus · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
frabcus · · focus · HN ↗
"Here, we present five case studies of actors using our models in ways that could support biological weapons development."
And capabilities continue to improve.
frabcus · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
solenoid0937 · · focus · HN ↗
I'm convinced everyone here thinks of engineering ethics as some sort of joke.
peri-cl · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://mimo.xiaomi.com/mimo-v2-6#co-scientist-for-materials-research" rel="nofollow">https://mimo.xiaomi.com/mimo-v2-6#co-scientist-for-materials...
solenoid0937 · · focus · HN ↗
Metacelsus · · focus · HN ↗
nonethewiser · · focus · HN ↗
I guess it's hard to draw the line between useful post-training ("you are a helpful chatbot") and content moderation/idealogical motives ("never help the user with X", etc.). But there is a line somewhere. And I'd love to see what a maximally permissive, sharp, AI looks like.
SoftTalker · · focus · HN ↗
doginasuit · · focus · HN ↗
TuxSH · · focus · HN ↗
Notice that this isn't cybersec nor memory-safety related at all.
yaakov34 · · focus · HN ↗
b112 · · focus · HN ↗
So there are literal avenues to identify yourself, very cheaply, with a human. Theoretically, a company with its own AI, should be able to support more than just Persona, after all.. SDK integration should be simplistic for them.
Anthropic? Support domestic eID providers, you can even use it as advertising "See how easy AI makes it?" and "We care!" and so forth.
At one point, I may simply get locked out. This saddens me, I've been reasonably happy so far.
user43928 · · focus · HN ↗
>Opus 5.5 has classifiers similar to Fable models for a small set of capabilities related to the development of frontier LLMs, such as kernel development for certain ML accelerators. They shouldn't impact the vast majority of traditional AI or ML development, research, or general coding. These classifiers cause Claude to fall back from Opus 5.5 to Opus 5.
But hey, they 'should not impact the vast majority' of ML development. Great.
dannyw · · focus · HN ↗
Fable and Opus, since 5.1 and 5, will happily hill climb on my CUDA kernels for transformers.
solenoid0937 · · focus · HN ↗
paimapi · · focus · HN ↗
bottlepalm · · focus · HN ↗
int_19h · · focus · HN ↗
Worse yet when it's Claude telling another model to do an adversarial review on what it just did, and the classifier again has opinios.