us-china competition

When China Gets Its Own Mythos

2 months ago

Anthropic and OpenAI have developed AI models (Mythos, GPT-5.5-Cyber) that can find and exploit software vulnerabilities faster and more effectively than most humans, even detecting flaws undetected for decades.
These AI models are currently restricted to defensive cybersecurity work, but adversaries like China are racing to acquire similar capabilities through distillation, chip smuggling, and domestic development.
The United States has a short window (9–12 months) to bolster critical infrastructure defenses against AI-powered cyberattacks, which could enable widespread, simultaneous disruption of water, power, and transit systems.
China's open-weight model GLM-5.2 and its state-aligned labs pose a near-term threat, as Chinese actors can easily remove safeguards and deploy offensive capabilities.
Policy recommendations include disrupting adversarial distillation and chip smuggling, creating a dedicated cyberdefense institution (e.g., Idaho National Laboratory), and redesigning infrastructure for resilience against physical attacks.
The U.S. must also strengthen counterintelligence for AI labs and coordinate with international allies to secure critical infrastructure vendors.