When the US imposed strict controls on the export of advanced GPUs, the computing backbone of AI, to China in 2022, then-NSA Jake Sullivan declared that the intention was to build a ‘small yard with a high fence’. The state would guard a few critical technologies jealously. But beyond that narrow enclosure, the free commerce of the world would continue undisturbed.
US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick’s order last week directing Anthropic to deny its latest Fable 5 model (and Mythos 5) to all non-citizens — including engineers who built it — marks a dramatic enlargement of that yard. Should the directive hold in all its severity, the fences will become iron walls. The decision lays bare three developments that will survive any potential reversal: uState, the supreme actorVarious competing ideologies, including those evangelising ‘long-termism’ and ‘effective altruism’, seem to believe that the mild-mannered, soft-spoken, bespectacled lot in Silicon Valley — not the gruff general or clueless politician — should be entrusted with the fate of the world. Over the course of this year, this notion has been mugged by reality.
