How AI is getting better at finding security holes; NPR, April 11, 2026

Huo Jingnan, NPR; How AI is getting better at finding security holes

"In the past few months, AI models have gone from producing hallucinations to becoming effective at finding security flaws in software, according to developers who maintain widely used cyber infrastructure. Those pieces of software, among other things, power operating systems and transfer data for things connected to the internet.

While these new capabilities can help developers make software more secure, they can also be weaponized by hackers and nation states to steal information and money or disrupt critical services.

The latest development of AI's cyber capability came on Tuesday, when AI lab Anthropic announced it had developed a powerful new model the company believes could "reshape cybersecurity." It said that its latest model, Mythos Preview, was able to find "high-severity vulnerabilities, including some in every major operating system and web browser." Not only that, the model was better at coming up with ways to exploit the vulnerabilities it found, which means malicious actors can more effectively achieve their goals.

For now, the company is limiting the access to the model to around 50 select companies and organizations "in an effort to secure the world's most critical software." They're calling the collaboration Project Glasswing, naming it after a butterfly species with transparent wings.

Anthropic says the risk for misuse is so high that it has no plans to release this particular model to the general public, according to the announcement, but it will release other related models. "Our eventual goal is to enable our users to safely deploy Mythos-class models at scale," the company wrote."