Chapters:
0:00 Introduction – The Digital World at Risk
2:24 What Makes Mythos a Game Changer?
3:45 Is Mythos Just Hype?
8:04 Who Gets Access? The Problem with Patching Only 20 Companies
10:54 Demystifying Zero Days and Bug Bounties
12:44 The Cat and Mouse Timeline: How Long Does the US Have?
16:07 AI-Written Code and the Opacity Problem
24:10 Claude Mythos System Card: What the AI Actually Did
28:29 International Coordination Opportunities
36:57 Policy Solutions
42:24 What Can Individuals Do? Practical Advice

A generation ago, the world's critical infrastructure was physical. Today, it’s largely digital. Your bank vault is a database, your filing cabinet is a server, your car is a robot on wheels. And in a world where these systems are mostly secure, life is more convenient and efficient. But all that comes into question when an AI system can break through the security that runs the world.

That’s what’s happened with Claude Mythos, Anthropic’s most powerful AI model yet. In a very short time, Claude found thousands of flaws and vulnerabilities in the software that runs the world, in every major operating system and web browser — systems that human security researchers had thought were secure for years.

How do we live in a world where a private company suddenly has a skeleton key that can unlock the entire digital world with little oversight or accountability? And what does Mythos mean for all of us who rely on digital security to go about our lives?

In this episode, we speak with two cybersecurity experts to answer these questions.

Josephine Wolff is a professor of cybersecurity policy at Tufts University, where she focuses on the economic impact of cyberattacks.

Fred Heiding is a research fellow at the Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.