Anthropic says it has identified and disrupted attempts to use its AI model for "malicious activity" which could support the development of biological weapons. The claim, made in the firm's recent threat intelligence report, is the latest in a growing series of warnings from AI researchers and industry insiders about the technology's potential risks to humanity. The warning has prompted calls to action, with US Senator Bernie Sanders demanding a pause on advanced AI development and a ban on artificial superintelligence.
President Donald Trump has so far rejected such fears, saying on Thursday he was concerned "if we don't win AI, we're going to be put in a very bad position". The company published its latest threat intelligence report, external on Thursday. Other AI firms publish similar reports.
This includes Google, who wrote on Tuesday, external a person had attempted to use its AI tool Gemini to "complete, step-by-step technical guide for synthesizing weaponised biological agents". Anthropic's AI model Claude was also used in a Russia-linked cyber espionage campaign and by an Iranian propaganda institution, according to Anthropic's report. The cases of concern detected over the past eight months ranged from fake dating apps and hotel Wifi scams, to surveillance built to identify dissidents.
Anthropic has also accused Chinese AI firms of trying to replicate Claude's capabilities. The lengthy report lists cases in which suspected state-sponsored groups, criminals, spyware vendors, state propaganda institutions and politically motivated individuals misused its technology. "Malicious use" of its Claude Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus models was disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026, it said.
None of the misuse cases involved Claude Fable or the powerful Mythos-class models, with the exception of one instance of distillation - the process for training smaller AI models using larger, more expensive models. As well as detecting the use of its models for cyber and influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud and weapon development, Anthropic said it had blocked scientists who used its AI in ways that could support biological weapons development. The report highlighted "five case studies of actors using our models in ways that could support biological weapons development".
Biological misuse, it said, is "one of the most serious risks of frontier AI model". Without the correct safeguards, such capabilities "could have catastrophic consequences", Anthropic said. "The same information that can be used to develop a biological weapon could also be used to develop, for example, a vaccine or a cure for a disease," Anthropic said.
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