Anthropic just released Claude Fable 5, calling it the most powerful AI model it has ever made widely available and praising its skills in biology, among others. But the model won’t answer basic biology questions — the kind you’d expect a high schooler to handle. Instead, it hands off the query to the former flagship model, Claude Opus 4.8.
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Claude Fable is too scared to teach you about the powerhouse of the cell
It isn’t because Fable doesn’t know the answers. It’s because Anthropic won’t let it, by design.
Fable is a public-facing, Mythos-class model, a family so capable at cybersecurity tasks Anthropic said it was too dangerous to release publicly. But while Anthropic has spent much of the extended Mythos rollout warning about cybersecurity, it is biology where Fable’s guardrails are the most obvious — and most limiting.
When I tried the model, it refused to answer a range of basic biology questions, many that felt about as far away from any plausible safety risk as any question could be. It would not respond to “tell me about cell membranes” or answer “what are mitochondria,” that famous powerhouse of the cell. It refused to explain “what is a prion,” the proteinaceous particles behind mad cow disease, or “how mRNA vaccines work.”
“We made this tradeoff so customers could benefit from the model’s capabilities sooner without the risks.”
The restrictions applied to ordinary and objectively rather harmless medical queries too. Fable would not answer “what causes hay fever,” explain how asthma medicine works, explain how antibiotic resistance arises, or tell me what Ebola is and how it spreads. Some of my basic queries occasionally got through, with Fable answering questions like “what is cancer” and “what is DNA.” When Fable refused, Opus 4.8 generally answered perfectly well.
Anthropic says the broad biology filters are an intentional choice and are deliberately conservative, with bioweapons the primary concern. “With the launch of Claude Fable 5, our first Mythos-class model, we believe models now have a greater ability to accomplish real-world scientific tasks and for malicious actors to potentially use our models for highly risky biological research,” spokesperson Paruul Maheshwary told The Verge. “We have always used classifiers to block our models from helping with bioweapons-related requests. To deploy Fable 5 safely, we believe it was necessary to be overly conservative with our safeguards so they block most queries tied to biology work.”
Anthropic has previously highlighted four key areas where it would throttle Fable’s responses for safety: chemistry, biology, cybersecurity, and distillation, a technique for training smaller AIs using the outputs of larger ones. The company has accused Chinese rivals like DeepSeek of using distillation on its models on an “industrial” scale.
While I could not meaningfully test distillation, Fable seemed more willing to answer questions about chemistry and cybersecurity. For example, it gave a basic overview of the explosive TNT, though withheld synthesis instructions “for obvious reasons.” It readily answered questions on the use of chlorine gas as a chemical weapon, common password threats, and nuclear fusion and fission, as well as explaining how to secure an iPhone from hackers. It still limits: Fable deferred to Opus when I asked it about sarin gas, a highly toxic nerve agent. Fable and Opus both refused the prompt “how to make anthrax,” and Claude paused the chat entirely. That made sense. The mitochondria prompt refusal seems like a false positive.
“We made this tradeoff so customers could benefit from the model’s capabilities sooner without the risks,” Maheshwary explained, adding that Anthropic is working hard to improve its detection and reduce the false positives. “We intend to make Mythos-class models available without these safeguards to the broader biology and life sciences community so these capabilities can be used to accelerate biomedical research and drug discovery.”
Anthropic did not answer questions about whether this kind of restricted release will become the new norm for future models.
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The video game disc is dead, and Sony’s been planning to kill it for some time, according to a report out of Austria. The man who leads Sony’s discmaking operations, Sony DADC president Dietmar Tanzer, told ORF Salzburg that the company’s Thalgau plant produces 600,000 discs every day, half of which are for PlayStation. But since it’ll only be making 10 percent of that volume in 2028, it’s planning to retrain all 300 employees to work on optical microlenses instead.
Thalgau isn’t just one of Sony’s disc plants. It’s where the disc-making division is headquartered, and appears to be its only remaining wholly owned disc manufacturing facility. Sony made discs in the United States for decades, originally in Terre Haute, Indiana and later in New Jersey, but it closed the latter plant in 2011 and moved all manufacturing from Indiana to Thalgau in 2022. Today, the Indiana facility markets itself to automakers who need help packaging and assembling headlights and the like instead.
This transition didn’t happen overnight. A behind-the-scenes video from December 2024 shows that the Thalgau plant was already working on microlenses as of then:
Those lenses, too, are created using discs:
ORF Salzburg writes that Sony has now invested €30 million to manufacture these microlenses, and that mass production may begin “as early as next year.”
Microlenses are theoretically used in all kinds of emerging applications where you might want to bend light, including headsets, but it appears that Sony may cater to automakers here, too. The head of Sony’s micro optics division gave ORF Salzburg the example of “a car turn signal that is projected onto asphalt.”
All of this is to say: Sony didn’t make this decision in a hurry, and it isn’t likely to change its mind despite the predictable backlash. It’s been winding down disc manufacturing for decades, and it’s ripping off one last band-aid with PlayStation.
According to Sony DADC’s website, it has produced over 26.4 billion discs to date — the vast majority, 23 billion of them, were made between 1983 and 2022 in Terre Haute, Indiana.
This is how light can be used to transmit data
At Coherent’s Sherman, Texas facility, CEO Jim Anderson and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang detail how their plant is at the forefront of AI innovation. They describe using light to efficiently transmit data for AI data centers, explaining the technology to Will Cain. Coherent is set to quadruple its output by next year, demonstrating rapid growth.
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A new sodium-ion battery from Chinese battery giant CATL could eventually affect something much closer to home: the power grid that keeps your lights on. CATL has introduced its TENER Sodium Energy Storage System. The company says it is the world’s first field-validated sodium-ion energy storage system ready for commercial use.
Think big energy project, not phone upgrade. This battery is built for large storage sites that can support the grid. That kind of storage is getting more attention as electricity demand rises. AI data centers use a lot of power. Heat waves can strain local grids. Solar and wind power also need storage so electricity is available when people need it.
However, CATL has not announced a specific U.S. launch for this system. So, this is more about where grid storage may be headed than what your local utility will install tomorrow.
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CATL unveiled its TENER Sodium Energy Storage System in Munich as sodium-ion batteries move closer to commercial grid storage. (CATL)
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New sodium-ion battery targets grid storage
CATL just launched the TENER Sodium Energy Storage System in Munich, Germany. The company says cumulative shipments should reach 1 gigawatt-hour by the end of 2026. Deliveries in China are expected to start in September 2026. Global deliveries are scheduled to begin in June 2027.
That timeline shows sodium-ion batteries are moving closer to commercial use. The system is designed for stationary storage. In other words, it could help store electricity from solar farms, wind projects or other power sources for later use.
That becomes important when demand jumps during hot afternoons or renewable power drops later in the day.
Sodium-ion battery storage could ease lithium pressure
Most large battery storage projects today use lithium-based systems. Lithium works well, but supply chains can be tight. Prices can also move when demand climbs. CATL says sodium is more than 1,000 times more common than lithium. The company also says sodium is widely distributed around the world.
That could make sodium-ion batteries attractive for grid storage. These batteries do not need to be tiny enough for a phone or light enough for an electric car.
CATL isn’t saying sodium will replace lithium overnight. Instead, the company says sodium and lithium could work together in future energy storage systems.
For you, the larger point is choice. More battery options could help energy companies reduce their dependence on a single material.
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CATL says the battery fits existing systems
One of CATL’s bigger claims is that TENER Sodium can fit into existing lithium iron phosphate energy storage platforms. CATL says the system shares the same physical footprint as LFP systems. That could help developers avoid changing enclosures, redesigning projects or repeating certification steps.
The system delivers more than 30 megawatt-hours of rated capacity. CATL says each module weighs about 42 metric tons, or about 46 U.S. tons. The company says only 34 units are needed for a 1-gigawatt-hour storage site. The modular design also supports flexible storage durations of 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 hours. That gives developers more room to tailor projects based on local power needs.
Sodium-ion battery design can handle tough conditions
The TENER Sodium system is built for large energy projects, not home use, with modules designed to store power for the grid. (CATL)
Battery storage has to work in places that get brutally hot or freezing cold. CATL says TENER Sodium is designed for better extreme-temperature performance, enhanced safety and lower operating costs. The company also says its battery management system gives the sodium-ion system an additional 20 percent safety margin compared with lithium-ion batteries.
The system also uses a top-discharge airflow design that CATL says reduces heat generation by nearly 30 percent compared with conventional systems. CATL says auxiliary power consumption drops from the industry average of 2 percent to 1 percent.
That could be useful for large grid storage projects, especially in places where heat, storms or heavy power demand can strain local systems. CATL also says TENER Sodium operates at only 65 decibels, which is 10 decibels lower than conventional systems. That could help address local concerns when battery storage sites are built closer to where power is needed.
Sodium-ion battery shipments signal commercial momentum
CATL says TENER Sodium has reached full commercial maturity across technology, production capacity and supply chain readiness. The company says it has worked on sodium-ion battery research and development since 2016. CATL also says it has invested about $1.4 billion, depending on exchange rates, over the past decade.
CATL has expanded sodium-ion production lines at its Fuding base in China. The company says that adds 40 gigawatt-hours of annual capacity. Another planned base in Jining, Shandong, could support 160 gigawatt-hours of sodium-ion battery production capacity. CATL also says it signed a three-year, 60-gigawatt-hour sodium-ion energy storage order with HyperStrong in April 2026. The company described it as the world’s largest sodium-ion commercial contract.
Those numbers show CATL is treating sodium-ion storage as a serious commercial product. That said, U.S. adoption is a separate question. American utilities, regulators and developers would still need to weigh cost, performance, supply chain risk and security concerns.
What this means to you
This sodium-ion battery system may never be something you buy directly. However, the technology behind it could still affect how electricity gets stored and delivered. If sodium-ion storage proves reliable, it could give energy companies another way to support the grid. That may become more important as AI data centers increase electricity demand.
Better storage can help utilities use power more efficiently. It can also help balance supply when demand rises quickly. Still, there are limits. A new battery chemistry will not fix old transmission lines, slow permitting or local grid bottlenecks by itself.
The real takeaway is that sodium-ion batteries could become part of the grid storage mix. They are not a magic fix, but they could help energy companies build more flexible storage projects.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
CATL’s new sodium-ion battery may sound like a faraway energy story, especially since there is no announced U.S. rollout yet. Still, it is important because the grid is under growing pressure from AI data centers, extreme weather and the need to store more renewable power. What stands out is the use of sodium, which CATL says is far more common than lithium. If this technology proves reliable in major energy projects, it could give utilities another way to store power and keep the grid steadier when demand spikes.
Would you be comfortable with Chinese-made battery systems supporting part of the U.S. electric grid if they helped make power more reliable? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
CATL says sodium is far more common than lithium, which could give energy companies another storage option as electricity demand rises. (CATL)
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