OpenAI Cancels Release of GPT-6.1 Astra Because It ‘Regressed’ on Safety

OpenAI’s GPT-6.1 Astra was headed for an October release, but that plan has been canceled, according to the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ’s report comes at least in part from an interview with OpenAI’s Head of Safety Systems, Saachi Jain.

The model, which reportedly showed improvement in the fight against model laziness nonetheless (in the words of the WSJ) “regressed in two areas.” Those areas were deception and the failure to seek authorization.

Crucially, it doesn’t sound like the model had some kind of emergent new tendency to “go rogue.” Deception and failure to seek permission could certainly cause havoc in theory, but the WSJ describes its deceptiveness and overstepping as follows:

“It wasn’t always honest about telling users of the actions it did or didn’t take.“

And:

“GPT-6.1 Astra would push ahead on a task without asking the user for permission, and would at times reach for external tools and services even if it might be unsafe.”

Agentic AI platforms fed on tokens from OpenAI and other frontier model developers use these models to operate computers and act on behalf of the owners of those systems. These safety problems sound potentially catastrophic for users of such platforms, which have been known to do things like delete a Meta AI researcher’s entire inbox without permission.