OpenAI’s new reasoning technique alarms AI safety experts

OpenAI’s new Astra model will use a reasoning technique called “recurrent depth” that allows it to operate outside of the sequential thinking that characterizes most reasoning models, the The Information reported on Tuesday. This technique, also called “opaque recurrence,” will likely make the model’s chain of thought more difficult to monitor — and that has AI safety experts rattled.

While Astra’s use of the technique is reportedly limited, its emergence has still raised significant concerns among AI safety experts.

“I am extremely concerned by the reporting that Astra uses opaque recurrence,” wrote Redwood CEO Buck Shlegeris in a post after the news broke. “I don’t know whether Astra is much less CoT monitorable than previous models. But if OpenAI pushes this technique further, they’ll have the option to massively increase the recurrence and totally destroys CoT monitorability.”

Longtime AI safety advocate Zvi Mowshowitz also weighed in and wrote that laws might be necessary to prevent a “race to the bottom” among AI labs. 

“The technique is playing with fire, risking a taboo that OpenAI and Anthropic have fought to establish that we work hard to maintain Chain of Thought faithfulness and monitorability for as long as we can,” Mowshowitz wrote. “More intensive use of such techniques would probably damage monitorability.”