Last Friday, US-based artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic received an “export control” directive from its government. The company was told it must block access to two of its most capable models, Fable and Mythos, for all foreign nationals.

Within hours, Anthropic shut down access to the models for users everywhere in the world, including researchers, clinicians and analysts in Australia. This happened with no warning and no backup plan.

The directive’s “foreign national” criterion is a citizenship concept. However, Anthropic and other cloud-based AI providers only know the location of their users, not their citizenship.

Consumer AI services have no effective mechanism to verify citizenship. Even their location filters can be dodged with tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs).

There is no way any control of these services based on user nationality can be enforced. A system that blocks a foreign national in the United States but allows access to a US national in Australia, for example, is not currently available.

The US government directive was a geopolitical signal – an indication rather than an enforceable control. The only way Anthropic could comply was to shut down access for people everywhere.

A question of sovereignty

Australian universities, government agencies, health systems and industry have integrated US-hosted frontier AI deeply into their operations. Advanced analytics platforms, AI-assisted research tools, and productivity........

© The Conversation