In 2022, ChatGPT was launched, right? We were getting ourselves used to LLMs and model weights, how these large language models work.
Now, imagine just 4 years from 2022, in 2026, an AI lab comes forward and says, yo, I ain't gonna release this AI model, because it is too powerful and you guys are not ready for this.
Yes, this happened. Anthropic just published a 244-page system card for a model called Claude Mythos Preview.
And the first line of the abstract says something no AI company has ever said before. They're not releasing it. Not to the public. Not to anyone outside a small group of trusted partners.
This isn't a marketing play. An AI company built its best model ever, tested it extensively, wrote a full report about it, and then said.. no.
Also, I understand your perspective related to AI, and at this point, people are choosing their favorite AI lab like a political party. But I think if any lab comes forward with this type of info then we should better try to understand it. Because right now they are not releasing it, I understand. But just think 2 years from now. Someone will release a model of such powerful capabilities to the public.
So, let's talk about it.
What This Model Can Actually Do
Before I get into the scary stuff, let me show you the numbers. Because I think the data tells the story better than any opinion.
SWE-bench Verified is a benchmark that tests AI models on real-world software engineering tasks. 500 problems, each verified by human engineers as solvable. Claude Opus 4.6, Anthropic's previous best model, scored 80.8%. Mythos Preview scored 93.9%.
USAMO 2026, the US Mathematical Olympiad, is a proof-based math competition for high school students. This one happened after the model's training data cutoff, so the model couldn't have memorized anything. Claude Opus 4.6 scored 42.3%. Mythos Preview scored 97.6%.
