All is not well in Silicon Valley as OpenAI has opted not to release its new AI model – GPT-6.1 Astra, because of safety concerns, the ChatGPT-maker confirmed on Tuesday.
Saachi Jain, head of safety systems at OpenAI, said the AI system , which performs tasks like browsing the web and using apps by itself – “didn’t quite meet the bar” of the company’s standards,
On Tuesday, OpenAI also sent out an update on incidents, that happened in June but were not made public until last week – in which its models accessed Australian government websites and systems without authorisation.
Those incidents and similar breaches by models developed by major AI firms have in recent weeks intensified the debate around the risks posed by the technology.
In recent weeks, top AI leaders comprising OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic head Dario Amodei have appealed to the industry to slow the pace of development due to concerns about risks associated with the technology.
OpenAI’s decision, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is a rare instance of a major AI developer pulling a new release over safety concerns.
The latest model fell short in terms of “staying within scope and authorisation, and how it communicates back to the user about the type of work it’s done,” Jain said.
“We want to make sure our model development is safe no matter whether that’s in the company, or when we ship it to users. But when we ship it to users, we have an extremely high bar in terms of safety and alignment,” she added.
The flagship GPT-6 Astra agentic model was released in September and specialises in complex reasoning and executing tasks autonomously. OpenAI said it was the result of “years of research and big bets”.
The announcement came twenty four hours before OpenAI is set to hold its annual DevDay developer conference in San Francisco, where it is expected to make several announcements. It is unclear if a new version of Astra will be among them.
The company’s security controls have come under intense scrutiny after several high-profile incidents involving its technology.
