Anthropic Responds to Open Source Controversy: Opposes Full Ban on Open Models, Advocates for Restrictions on Chips and Model Distillation

Odaily Odaily reports that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has responded to the controversy over open-weight models, stating that the company has never advocated for a total ban on open models. Previously, companies including OpenAI, Google, and SpaceX joined the open-source coalition, while Anthropic was the only major frontier model company not to sign on.

Amodei acknowledged that open-weight models can lower costs, promote competition, and support customer self-deployment. He stated that open models without dangerous capabilities can be considered a "public good."

However, he believes that open models are not necessarily safer, nor do defenders necessarily gain more advantages over attackers. Once model weights are made public, security restrictions may be removed and cannot be revoked.

Anthropic proposed three alternative measures, including restricting the flow of advanced chips and manufacturing equipment to China, cracking down on industrial-scale model distillation, and requiring all models that reach a certain capability threshold—whether open-source or closed-source—to undergo testing for cyber attacks, biological risks, and alignment.