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Technology leaders warn the Trump administration about risks of Anthropic’s advanced models | International | Central News Agency CNA
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Please agree to our privacy policy to enable news listening. (Central News Agency, Washington, 13th Comprehensive Foreign Report) According to people familiar with the matter, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy expressed concerns about the security risks that may be posed by the most advanced models of artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic when he met with senior leaders of the U.S. Trump administration this week with many technology industry leaders. Amazon did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. Citing national security concerns, the Trump administration yesterday ordered Anthropic to ban all foreigners from using its latest AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, regardless of whether they live in the United States or abroad. In response, Anthropic announced that it would disable access to the relevant models globally. Anthropic posted on its blog yesterday that the U.S. government believes there is a way to bypass (that is, “jailbreak”) the protection mechanism. If so, unscrupulous people can use the AI ​​model Fable 5 to identify software vulnerabilities. Anthropic said in a blog post that the U.S. government’s restrictions are implemented in the form of export controls. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which is responsible for export controls, did not respond to a request for comment. Some experts who support export controls on advanced AI models are puzzled by the Trump administration’s move, which affects both U.S. allies and adversaries. Jimmy Goodrich, a senior researcher at the University of California’s Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, said that this measure was not well thought out because the ban even prevented “Canadians and British people working at Anthropic from using the model for research and development.” Anthropic, which has secretly submitted an application for a U.S. initial public offering (IPO), has had disputes with Trump administration officials in the past. The order was issued suddenly just when the previous disputes between the two parties seemed to be cooling down. (Compiled by: Cai Jiamin) 1150614 Support the Central News Agency’s choice to stand with the facts. Every donation you make is a small amount of sponsorship to protect press freedom. Download the Central News Agency’s “First-hand News” APP to get the latest news in real time. The text, pictures and audio and video of this website may not be reproduced, publicly broadcast or publicly transmitted and used without authorization.



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TECH & AI
Companies Are Getting Burned by Burning Tons of Tokens
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Just last month, the most important metric in Silicon Valley was tokens burned—the units of measurement for the computing power being used by AI models. CEOs were giving employees the Matthew McConaughey “those are rookie numbers, you gotta pump those numbers up” speech from The Wolf of Wall Street. Now, they’re asking their staff to pump the brakes. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, corporate leaders have realized that it actually costs money to burn AI tokens, and doing almost exclusively for the sake of doing it with no other goal in mind is actually not a great business strategy. Good thing these guys get paid tens of millions of dollars a year to figure these things out. Earlier this week, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that it was “getting harder to justify” the cost of AI initiatives within the company because the output was not keeping up with the token burn rate, while acknowledging that part of the reason that they went so ham on token burning in the first place is that it “can feel” like AI is free.

It’s not, as it turns out. An anonymous AI consultant told Axios that one of its clients accidentally spent half a billion dollars in a single month because it never bothered to put a usage limit on employee access to Anthropic’s Claude. That is… a lot. Like to the point of straining credulity. The Journal didn’t find anything quite that egregious, but did hear about a financial institution that saw its employees burn through hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tokens per month, with employees using premium-tier models to ask basic questions and have inane back-and-forth conversations.

That was pretty much always going to be how this very dumb era of justifying AI expenditure was going to go. Corporations have already spent tons of money to embrace these systems, and they need to justify the spend. To do so, they encourage their employees to use it as much as possible. In turn, the employees do—even when there is no point in using AI for a task. Meta killed its token-burning leaderboard last month after it leaked, revealing that the top “Token Legend” managed to burn 281 billion tokens in a month—more than the amount of compute it would take to reproduce the entirety of Wikipedia 33 times over. Amazon joined in that rollback this week, according to the Financial Times, axing its scoreboard of employees who were using the company’s internal AI tools the most—a decision that reportedly was made after it became obvious that employees were giving AI agents pointless tasks just to hold their position on the leaderboard.

It’s clear the corporate world is willing to frivolously light money on fire in an effort to justify their existing cash burn pits. Turns out they do have limits, though. You can only use “tokens burned” as a metric at so many quarterly earnings calls before shareholders start to wonder what the price tag of all those tokens adds up to.



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TECH & AI
Amazon Stops Selling Fast E-Bikes To Californians
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Bowing to pressure from the California Attorney General, Amazon will no longer sell the fastest e-bikes in the state because of existing laws that differentiate bicycles with electric assist from mopeds and e-motorcycles. The online retail giant said Friday it would stop selling e-bikes that have top speeds that exceed the classification for a bicycle, according to Sacramento-based KCRA. It follows a message from Attorney General Rob Bonta last month to e-bike sellers and buyers that the top speed for pedal-assisted models or Class 3 bikes is 28 mph. Models with low-speed pedal assist or a throttle-assist (Class 1 and Class 2, respectively) are not allowed to exceed 20 mph, according to state law.  The classification is required by California law to be disclosed with a permanent label on the e-bike, along with the power of the electric motor and top speed. “We are seeing a surge of safety incidents on our sidewalks, parks, and streets,” Bonta said in an Apr. 14 press release titled “Too Fast, Too Furious.” “Bike riders and parents: If your or your teen’s electric two-wheeled vehicle goes too fast, it might be a motorcycle or a moped — not an e-bike.”

California law states that riders under 16 years old are legally allowed to ride only Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes, while those 16 and older can also use Class 3. However, Bonta’s office states that anything that exceeds the top speed allowed on a Class 3 vehicle, or doesn’t have pedals, requires a motorcycle license, insurance and registration in accordance with California Department of Motor Vehicle laws.  Amazon’s move follows recent fatal crashes with teens on e-motorcycles involving the riders or pedestrians, as well as ongoing clashes between bicycle and transit advocates, city leaders and even hikers, according to ABC7 in Los Angeles.

While several popular e-bikes on Amazon have top speeds in the 25 mph ballpark, others far exceed the 28 mph cap, with some reaching as high as 40 mph. However, as of Monday afternoon, I was still able to put this YVY e-bike rated at between 30 and 38 mph in my cart and have it arrive by May 22. 

The rollout of city and state E-bike regulations over the past few years has proven controversial. New Jersey’s latest law that goes into effect in July is among the strictest, requiring riders to be at least 15 years old with a valid driver’s license, registration, and insurance for an electric-assisted bicycle that can go more than 20 mph. Since Gov. Phil Murphy signed the bill into law in January, it drew the ire of not only bicycle advocates, but environmental groups that said it would put the state behind on its climate goals. In California, at least, the law is pretty clear: if you want to go faster than 28 mph on two wheels, get a motorcycle license. 



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