Opinion | The U.S. military is missing out because of Hegseth's war on Anthropic

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon on April 8. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Leaving aside the underlying merits of the contractual dispute, it is now abundantly clear that the Trump administration's aggressive actions against Anthropic have been counterproductive.

The cutting-edge artificial intelligence business announced last week that its next-generation model, Mythos, has discovered zero-day vulnerabilities -- previously unknown software bugs that can be used by hackers to compromise systems -- in all major internet browsers and operating systems. The implication is stark: software may be more brittle than anyone suspected, and AI can now find and exploit those weaknesses faster than any human team can patch them. Everything that depends on software -- hospitals, banks, power grids, the devices in your pocket -- is potentially exposed.