Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says US AI restrictions underscore risks of dependence

Audio By Carbonatix

WESTPORT, Ireland (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday U.S. restrictions on Anthropic’s newest AI models show the dangers of overreliance on a limited number of American providers.

AI giant Anthropic said Friday it has taken its latest artificial intelligence models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, offline to comply with a directive from the Trump administration to prevent their use by foreign nationals.

The export controls mark the U.S. government’s most significant step to date to restrict access to the most advanced AI models. Anthropic released Fable widely this week. That model is a limited version of the even more advanced Mythos, to which the company has tightly limited access due to cybersecurity fears.

“The situation we’re in collectively right now with Mythos and Fable is something that can happen with overreliance on certain models” Carney said. “Nobody has done anything wrong in the situation. But we will have done something wrong if we just accept this, don’t take the lesson, don’t build out and diversify.”

Carney made the comments in Ireland ahead of the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France. He said artificial intelligence will be one of the major discussions on Monday night.

Anthropic, based in San Francisco, California, has said the new Mythos model it announced on April 7 is so “strikingly capable” that it is limiting its use to select customers because of its ability to surpass human cybersecurity experts in finding and exploiting computer vulnerabilities.

“You’ll hear me say this over and over again. It is never a good idea to have one option,” Carney said.

Carney said he spent 45 minutes talking with French President Emmanuel Macron about artificial intelligence on Friday night. He said there “will not be a mission accomplished banner” that comes out of the summit because the issues are complex.

Carney linked the U.S. AI curbs to Canada’s push to diversify trade and technology. More than 70% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. and Carney has set a goal for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade. Trump’s trade war is causing a chill in investment.

Carney doesn’t have a bilateral meeting scheduled with Trump at the G7 despite the free trade agreement between U.S., Canada and Mexico being up for renewal. He said USMCA discussions will be held at the summit among Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for U.S. trade, Janice Charette, Canada’s chief negotiator, and U.S. Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“The right way to do it at this stage, will be between the principal negotiators, which is going to happen in Evian,” he said.

Carney visited his family’s ancestral village of Aghagower, Ireland earlier Sunday. Carney’s grandfather, Robert Carney, and grandmother, Nora Moran, were both from the town in County Mayo, and immigrated to Canada in the 1920s.

Owen Morgan was with his 17-month-old son, Malachy Morgan -- who was wearing Montreal Canadiens jersey -- and said people in Mayo county are very proud of Carney.

“People are very impressed,” Morgan said. “He’s very much standing up for Canadians, and I think that’s very much admired.”