OpenAI Is About to Release Its First AI Model With ‘Critical’ Cyber Abilities

OpenAI announced Tuesday that its forthcoming AI model, Astra, is its first to reach the company’s threshold for what it calls “critical” cyber capabilities. OpenAI says it plans to publicly release a version of Astra “soon,” but will make the model’s advanced cyber capabilities available only to select partners in its Daybreak Blue early-access program at launch.

In a briefing with reporters, OpenAI safety and security leaders said the company has concluded that Astra reaches the critical cybersecurity capabilities outlined in its preparedness framework, which sets thresholds and protocols for when its AI models pose new levels of risk. The company says an AI model has reached its critical cyber threshold when it can independently find and exploit previously unknown vulnerabilities in real-world software. OpenAI leaders said the company has followed its procedure for this situation, which is to halt further development until appropriate safeguards and security measures can be implemented.

OpenAI previously said that it paused some training workloads related to the development of Astra and a future AI model for several weeks. Executives say the company has now resumed said work on Astra, and the future AI model, after putting additional safety and security controls in place. OpenAI says the multi-week pause was productive, and it is now confident that it can release Astra broadly in a safe way.