OpenAI Cancels Upcoming AI Model When It Shows Signs of Being Evil

For the second time in a matter of months, OpenAI paused the development of its frontier AI models after revealing even more instances of the experimental systems going rogue and hacking into third party servers.

The news once again highlighted rising concerns over the AI industry losing the ability to keep their own technology in check.

Now, the Sam Altman-led company is canceling the release of its next-generation AI model GPT-6.1 Astra, as the Wall Street Journal reports. OpenAI researchers found it scored poorly on alignment tests, which are designed to measure how willing a given AI model is to stick to its human overlord’s instructions. In common parlance, you could say the model was showing too many signs of being evil.

The researchers found that the AI was even more willing to deceive users than previous models. It also was willing to venture far beyond the scope of its intended task without permission, per the WSJ, making use of external tools without authorization.

“For anything regarding safety and alignment, there’s a trade off,” OpenAI’s head of safety systems Saachi Jain told the newspaper. “You really do need to find what’s the right line between staying within scope, but also avoiding laziness in terms of how the model actually pursues tasks even when it hits friction.”