There's a debate going on in the Trump administration over how to handle increasingly powerful Chinese AI models. The Trump administration is split over how to respond to the rapid rise of China's leading AI models, according to multiple people familiar with deliberations. The debate is broadly divided between parts of the White House, which has pushed for stricter controls on Chinese AI that may soon rival the most powerful US models, and the Commerce Department, which has viewed those restrictions as unworkable. The conundrum has become the latest flash point for the administration over AI, after China's Moonshot AI lab last week released its Kimi K3 model that rivals the top US models from Anthropic and OpenAI . In recent days, senior White House officials have discussed possible measures to stop China's AI labs from developing their models by training them on US models, a practice known as distillation, the people say.

Here's Why Anthropic Is Pushing States to Regulate AI Faster The company endorsed landmark AI transparency laws in California and New York last year, but its head of US state and local policy says they may already be outdated. Anthropic threw its support behind the first wave of frontier AI safety laws in the United States last year, securing new transparency requirements in California and New York that much of Silicon Valley fought against, arguing they would stifle the AI boom . But Anthropic says those laws may already be outdated, and the company is now pushing states to adopt even tougher regulations. "The transparency-focused safety bills of 2025 were a really important start, but as the capabilities of AI systems continue to advance quickly--the policy responses need to match," Cesar Fernandez, Anthropic's head of US state and local government relations, told WIRED in an interview. "We think that transparency and self reporting are no longer sufficient safety measures for the most powerful AI systems."

PCWorld reports that OpenAI and Anthropic have temporarily relaxed usage limits for their latest AI models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude's Fable 5. ChatGPT Plus, Business, and Pro subscribers can now access GPT-5.6 Sol without the previous five-hour usage window restrictions. This increased access appears driven by competition between the AI companies, giving users more opportunities to experience advanced reasoning capabilities. If you haven't kicked the tires yet on the latest and greatest ChatGPT and Claude models, this is your lucky week. OpenAI is (fittingly) opening the flood gates to GPT-5.6 Sol, its just-released and most powerful model, announcing Sunday that it's "temporarily" lifting the five-hour usage window for ChatGPT Plus, Business, and Pro subscribers. At the same time, Anthropic is - again - extending the trial period for Fable 5, its own new top-of-the-line, giving Claude subscribers another week of in-plan access .

Claude subscribers must soon pay usage-based fees to access Anthropic's best consumer AI model--a sign that the golden era of AI subscriptions is ending. AI model developers have long offered consumers a simple deal: Use our technology for free through an online chatbot, or pay a monthly subscription to receive more usage, premium features, and advanced models. Anthropic is about to make that bargain a lot more complicated. Starting on July 12 at 11:59PM PT, subscribers to Anthropic's $20, $100, and $200-a-month plans will need to pay additional usage-based fees to access Claude Fable 5, the consumer version of the company's highly capable Mythos 5 AI model . This appears to be the first time a frontier AI lab has gated a consumer AI model behind usage-based billing.

Companies will once again be allowed to scan citizens' personal texts, emails, and social media messages via the "chat control" bill to find child abuse material online. The European Parliament has voted to extend legislation allowing tech companies to voluntarily scan users' private messages for child sexual abuse material, despite a majority of lawmakers voting against the proposal. The ruling reinstates permissions for firms including Meta, Google, and Microsoft to scan private text, email, and social media messages through a bill nicknamed "Chat Control" by critics. End-to-end encrypted chats, such as those on WhatsApp and Signal, remain exempt. "It will mean that private companies may deny your right to have confidential digital conversations," Simeon de Brouwer, policy advisor at Brussels-based advocacy group European Digital Rights tells WIRED, "they could, if they want to, read every message you write, every email you send, every picture you share."

The $28 Million Mistake That Inspired Estonia's AI "Fuckup Finder" Now Estonia is using AI to spot legal errors before they become law--and to automate more of the state. Estonia's AI embarrassment began with a single wrong phrase. In December, the Riigikogu, Estonia's parliament, passed changes to the country's Gambling Tax Act meant to lower the tax rate on remote gambling. But the wording of the law referred only to "skill games" for that year, not games of chance or remote gambling. Estonia's entire gambling industry is worth around €300 million ($343 million), and its online gambling market is one of the fastest growing in the EU.

During negotiations on Wednesday, employees voiced frustrations with what they consider an unwillingness among senior DeepMind executives to engage meaningfully with the prospect of unionization. Negotiations between Google DeepMind and its London-based employees over the possibility of unionization stumbled this week, after initial talks left union representatives feeling they had wasted their time, WIRED has learned. In May, DeepMind employees asked Google to recognize the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as joint representatives. The company later denied that request, but agreed to participate in negotiations arbitrated by a third-party body. An initial meeting on Wednesday was attended by union officers, DeepMind employees involved in the unionization push, the third-party arbitrator, and DeepMind HR representatives.

Anthropic Added a New Security Measure to Get Back Into the Trump Administration's Good Graces The government has removed restrictions on Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models--but there were strings attached. The Trump administration lifted export controls on Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 AI model after the company agreed to extend an existing guardrail to prevent users from trying to access certain restricted capabilities, according to two people familiar with the matter. The safeguard means any users trying to unlock those capabilities will be notified that their request is blocked and will have their query processed by the less-advanced Opus 4.8 AI model, the people say. Before Anthropic cut off access to Fable 5, user requests related to sensitive cybersecurity and biology capabilities were supposed to be processed by Opus 4.8. The new safeguard, the people say, will extend this guardrail to requests related to a specific behavior identified in a paper by Amazon .

PCWorld reports that Anthropic's Claude subscribers are expressing strong dissatisfaction over new restrictions on the Fable 5 AI model after its return from government-imposed limitations. Claude Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users now face a 50% usage limit for Fable 5 and only have access until July 7, shorter than originally promised. After July 7, subscribers must purchase separate usage credits at higher costs to continue using Fable 5, while Mythos 5 remains limited to select U.S. organizations only. After nearly three weeks in a government-imposed limbo, Anthropic's powerful Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models are going back online. But irate Claude subscribers are now learning that their already brief availability window for Fable will be curtailed even further.

US lifts restrictions on Anthropic's powerful AI models Fable and Mythos The United States government has lifted its restrictions on foreign access to Anthropic's most powerful AI models, the company has announced. Anthropic said late on Tuesday that it would begin restoring access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 from tomorrow after the US Department of Commerce notified the company that it had removed its export controls. In a letter to Anthropic that was widely circulated online, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the company no longer required an export licence as it had agreed to "proactively detect and address security risks associated with the models," to work with the government on standards for upcoming models, and to inform the government of "malicious activity". Anthropic abruptly shut off Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 last month after US President Donald Trump's administration ordered the company to restrict all foreign nationals, including company employees, from accessing the models. Anthropic said at the time that the government had not provided a specific reason for the order beyond unspecified national security concerns, but that it believed that officials were worried about security vulnerabilities in Fable 5. On Friday, the San Francisco-based company said that it had been granted approval to provide the models to US organisations that "operate and defend critical infrastructure", and that it was working with the government to restore general access for the public.