Finance ministers, central bankers, and financiers have expressed serious concerns about a powerful new AI model they fear could undermine the security of financial systems.
The development of the Claude Mythos model by Anthropic has led to crisis meetings, after it found vulnerabilities in many major operating systems.
Experts say it potentially has an unprecedented ability to identify and exploit cybersecurity weaknesses - though others caution further testing is needed to properly understand its capabilities.
Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne told the BBC that Mythos had been discussed extensively at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Washington DC this week.
Certainly it is serious enough to warrant the attention of all the finance ministers, he said. The difference is that the Strait of Hormuz - we know where it is and we know how large it is... the issue that we're facing with Anthropic is that it's the unknown, unknown.
He added, This is requiring a lot of attention so that we have safeguards, and we have processes in place to make sure that we ensure the resiliency of our financial systems.
Mythos is one of Anthropic's latest models developed as part of its broader AI system called Claude, a rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.
It was revealed by Anthropic earlier this month, when developers responsible for testing AI models and their performance in so-called misaligned tasks noted that it was strikingly capable at computer security tasks.
Citing concerns it could surface old software bugs or find ways to easily exploit system vulnerabilities, Anthropic has not released the model.
Instead, it has made Mythos available to tech giants like Amazon Web Services, CrowdStrike, Microsoft, and Nvidia as part of an initiative called Project Glasswing - which it describes as an effort to secure the world's most critical software.
On Thursday, Anthropic released a new version of an existing model, Claude Opus, saying it would allow Mythos' cyber capabilities to be tested in less powerful systems.
Concerns raised about Mythos may exceed chatter around previous AI models, but some cyber-security experts have questioned how justified they are - especially given the model has not been independently tested by the wider industry.
Top bankers are to be given access to the model in advance for system testing. The CEO of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, emphasized the need for immediate understanding of the vulnerabilities being exposed.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey warned that this development must be taken seriously and could facilitate cybercriminals exploiting system vulnerabilities.
