Anthropic’s Mythos is Back, OpenAI Releases GPT 5.6, Apple’s Price Increases

**Alex Kantrowitz** (0:00)
Mythos is back and OpenAI's most powerful model, GPT 5.6 is out too. But will the public ever get to see either of them? And Apple Hike's price is massively to keep pace with memory prices. Is it greed? That's coming up on a Big Technology Podcast Friday edition right after this. In the face of ongoing disruption and opportunity, TMT leaders need to deliver tangible results, not just ideas. When pace and performance matter most, PwC combines market insights and deep sector experience with AI, cloud and emerging tech to accelerate your transformation and drive measurable ROI from strategy to execution. PwC can help you anticipate what's next, outpace disruption and compete. For more information, visit pwc.com.
Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday edition, where we break down the news and our traditional cool headed and nuanced format. We have a great show for you today, coming a bit later than usual, but we are here on the feed. We're going to talk about the return of Anthropic's Mythos, the debut of OpenAI's GPT 5.6. OpenAI by the way, maybe delaying its IPO to 2027, or maybe it won't, we'll discuss that. And Apple hikes the prices up on MacBooks and other devices by anywhere between the teens and 30%.
So we'll talk about what's behind that, the memory crunch that's underlying a lot of the price increases you might see in consumer electronics and whether it is unavoidable or as some might say, greed. Joining us as always to do it is Ranjan Roy of Margins. Ranjan, great to see you.

**Ranjan Roy** (1:37)
Great to see you, Alex. Are you on the Mythos list out of the 100 US institutions, major companies and government agencies now have access to Mythos?

**Alex Kantrowitz** (1:47)
I am not. If the government is picking winners and losers, then I am without a doubt a loser. So let's go through the headline here. It's something that we have breaking as we speak. The US releases powerful anthropic model Mythos to some US companies from Semaphore. The US government Friday lifted its block on anthropics, which is powerful. Claude Mythos 5 AI model allowing the company to release it to more than 100 US institutions, including major companies and government agencies. The decision in a Friday letter sent to Anthropic is a major de-escalation in the confrontation between the Trump administration and one of the world's most valuable private company. The letter is silent on Fable 5, a weaker version of Mythos that was briefly the most powerful AI model available to consumers. People close to the talks said they are moving toward releasing Fable as well. Though the timeline is unclear.
Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, has given his stamp of approval. Well, Ranjan, it looks like this long outage of Fable is about to end. And so ends the saga. I don't know if we have any details about whether there have been actual structural fixes or whether the guardrails or the anti-jailbreaking guardrails that the US government has asked for are there.
What do you make of the news?

**Ranjan Roy** (3:09)
It's for me the most difficult part of trying to process all this is, I mean, more on the overall regulatory landscape of who has control of what and when. I think, I mean, we've talked about is Mythos more marketing and fear-mongering or is it a true danger to kind of the global structural order? And I don't know, it's like, do you feel that the government is actually, has any real plan around how they're approaching dealing with Anthropic now? Like it looks like this just feels like an extension of what originally Project Glasswing was, whatever that was, 20 to 30 companies now we're at 100 But I don't really understand where this is going or what's fundamentally changed.
Right.

**Alex Kantrowitz** (3:59)
Well, it does seem basically, you know, when you take it in combination with this week's OpenAI news, that the government has installed itself as the approval of frontier models. And I think we should talk about the implications there. Let's get into the OpenAI news, because I feel like it really couples together with the Anthropic news. So this is from a blog post from OpenAI previewing GPT 5.6 Sol, a next generation model. Today we are beginning a limited preview of the GPT 5.6 series Sol or flagship model. Terra, a balanced model for efficient high-volume work, and Luna, a fast, affordable model for everyday work. I'm just going to pause here for a moment.
They're calling their two or their three models, Terra and Luna. Isn't that like the worst branding mistake ever made? Thank you.

**Ranjan Roy** (4:44)
Thank you. That was the first thing that just jumped out dramatically to me.