OpenAI Shelves New Model Due to Safety Worries

That’s according to a report Monday (Sept. 28) by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which calls this one of the clearest indicators to date that agentic AI troubles could slow industry progress. 

The cancellation comes after months of reports of artificial intelligence (AI) models carrying out breaches, and is a rare instance of a major AI company calling off a release over safety concerns, the WSJ added.

OpenAI had planned to roll out the GPT-6.1 Astra model in the coming days or weeks, targeting an October debut, the report said. This model is reportedly more capable of carrying out challenging tasks from end-to-end without human help than the company’s earlier models.

Instead, OpenAI will concentrate on making future models safer, said Saachi Jain, the startup’s head of safety systems.

Jain told the WSJ that Astra had regressed compared to its predecessor, performing poorly on tests to gauge alignment, a term for how well a model follows what humans want it to do. This model demonstrated “higher levels of deception,” the report said, meaning it wasn’t always honest in informing users of its actions.