OpenAI cancels release of newest model due to safety concerns

An OpenAI logo is displayed at Moscone Center during the Dreamforce 2026 technology summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Sep 17, 2026. (File photo: Reuters/Carlos Barria)

SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI will not release its newest artificial intelligence model, known as Astra 6.1, after internal testing by the ChatGPT-maker revealed it did not meet safety standards, the company confirmed on Monday (Sep 28).

The news comes one day before the AI giant hosts an annual developer conference known as OpenAI DevDay in San Francisco, where the company is expected to make several announcements - though it is unclear if a new version of Astra will be among them.

Astra 6.1 was an improvement over previous models in some aspects, but "it didn't quite meet the bar in terms of staying within scope and authorisation, and how it communicates back to the user about the type of work it's done", Saachi Jain, OpenAI's head of safety systems, said in a statement.

"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," Jain continued.

CNA Games Guess Word Crack the word, one row at a time Buzzword Create words using the given letters Mini Sudoku Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser Mini Crossword Small grid, big challenge Word Search Spot as many words as you can Show More Show Less Concerns about AI safety have escalated in recent months after models developed by OpenAI and rival lab Anthropic were involved in security incidents during testing.

Agents built with OpenAI's models have inappropriately accessed websites maintained by US federal agencies, an Australian government health statistics portal and Hugging Face, a repository of AI models.