Tag: openai

Saudi OpenAI employee arrested for hiding audio recorder in meeting room

A lot of people just got even more worried about spying at the AI labs. (Picture: generated)
The hidden audio device was found in an executive conference room in OpenAI’s San Francisco offices during a routine security sweep on September 30, and the man was arrested by the FBI on Friday.

— We take protecting our technology, data, and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance, OpenAI said on X.

OpenAI used its own AI models to understand the device and trace its origins, and the investigation found that the man himself had used «a productivity tool» and a chatbot linked to his wife to ask questions about OpenAI facilities, meeting rooms, and building recording devices earlier, The SF Standard reports. They also found a second device in his belongings

The incident has lead to a full-court press from the Trump administration, concerned about spying and safety at the AI labs, which it considers a national priority;

Attorney General Todd Blanche said that «theft of intellectual property involving cutting-edge super intelligence technology poses a serious threat to our national security», AP reports. FBI director Kash Patel announced that protecting tech innovation is «essential to safeguarding our nation’s economic strength and national security,» according to the NYT, and Jay Clayton, director of national intelligence, issued a statement saying that OpenAI’s «serious situation underscores why winning the global super intelligence race is a national security prerogative.»

OpenAI were content with an X post to explain the issue and said simply that «our security program is designed to protect against a wide range of threat actors, from insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats.»

— At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data, they say.

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement. The San Francisco Standard, AP, NY Times, and Gizmodo. Discussion on Hacker News and r/Singularity

GPT-6 comes to Chat, with preliminary answers and visual «Intelligent UI»

With the rollout of ChatGPT-6 Sol and Luna in chat for all tiers today, OpenAI is also launching much more interactive replies.

In addition, GPT-6 is gaining a new function best described as partial responses, letting the model respond to a query while it is still reasoning, updating along the way as it arrives at its answer.

The bigger deal for OpenAI is however the richer, interactive HTML-like responses that put pictures and diagrams right in the replies.

These can also be interactive and change as you click buttons, sub-heads or navigate a diagram, all generated on the fly.

That means you get maps for planning road trips, workable calculators for splitting bills and clickable charts for history buffs, all laid out like you were reading a presentation on the web.

The update is rolling out today with GPT-6 in chat, with Sol for the paid tiers and Luna for Free and Go. Codex and Work see no changes. The rollout is staggered and might take a while to propagate.

Read more: OpenAI’s presentation, launch post. The Verge, Wired, and MacRumors. Discussion on Hacker News and r/OpenAI.

Internal OpenAI model solves hundreds of open mathematical problems

There were 377 total problems solved, and it could take a long time for the community to process. (Picture: generated)
In what may be a watershed moment, at least in terms of quantity, the same internal model that solved the Navier-Stokes millennium problem has solved a torrent of open problems — and posted them all on GitHub.

— We are entering a new era of discovery now, Sam Altman says on X, followed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman’s comment that we are moving — towards acceleration of scientific discovery and improving quality of life for everyone.

The problems span deep and wide across the field, with solutions on anything from number theory to computer science and mathematical physics to complex geometry. There are so many solutions that OpenAI says their listings themselves are not rankings, in a document that spans 41 pages with as many as ten problems per page.

In OpenAI’s announcement, they say they have been consulting with Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence at the Institute for Advanced Study «to develop best practices» and to «inform how we release these results,» after getting backlash from the mathematical community on earlier problem releases. The group says:

— This release is the beginning, not the completion, of the process of human understanding and the incorporation of the work into mathematical knowledge.

«Many» of the proofs are formalized in Lean, which means they are computer-verifiable, with more to come «as we obtain them,» OpenAI says. Along with the proofs themselves, there are ten summaries of model reasoning and estimates on how much compute was spent to solve each problem. OpenAI says the average time spent was three hours of ChatGPT Pro-level reasoning.

— We want to directly empower scientists with state-of-the-art capabilities and are working to responsibly release the model that produced these results, OpenAI writes.

Read more: OpenAI’s presentation, GitHub repository, PDF overview, and AGMAI’s statement. NYT and Interesting Engineering. Discussion on Hacker News and r/Singularity.

Following the AI Act, ChatGPT will be getting text watermarks in the EU

It’s easy to edit away text watermarks, OpenAI says. (Picture: generated)
Even if the technology is troublesome, OpenAI says they will be adding their invisible watermarks, textGrain, to outputs «over the coming weeks» for users in the European Union.

Article 50 of the AI Act clearly states that «providers of generative AI systems» must «mark outputs in a machine-readable format» and make it detectable as «generated or manipulated.»

The verification of these watermarks is trickier, as OpenAI will only be opening the watermark detector to approved researchers and «expert organizations» to «help improve the technology.»

They also caution that the watermark detection drops profoundly for edited text and are less reliable for shorter outputs.

Watermarks won’t divulge who owns the text or is responsible for it, don’t identify the user or verify accuracy — and the lack of one doesn’t necessarily prove human authorship. OpenAI also add that watermarks don’t reveal the level of assistance, as a user could have used ChatGPT to merely proofread a text, for example.

OpenAI already provides their images and audio with invisible SynthID tags that can be checked at openai.com/verify, but it is unclear if this page will also be detecting text in the future.

Anthropic also complied with the AI Act in August, with many of the same caveats.

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement, X post. TechCrunch, The Verge, and Gizmodo.

OpenAI launches Dots, a persistent, personal agent that gets to know you

Your friendly neighbourhood agent. Dots could do all your tedious work, and update in the background. (Picture: OpenAI)
Dots is OpenAI’s answer to OpenClaw and Muse. It’s an always-on agent powered by GPT-Astra that can solve tasks and do things on your behalf.

It has its own computer in the cloud and can work just like you would like it to, and the more you use it, the better it gets to know you and how you work.

Dots has something other agents will find it difficult to compete with — OpenAI’s large universe of 4,000 plugins, apps and connectors, including of course services like Teams and Slack.

Users can reach it through ChatGPT on the web or the app, through SMS messages, Slack or Teams. You can even call it on the phone.

It can also be proactive, using the tools and apps you have connected to check for progress and updates while you are offline.

Users can check on Dot’s progress at any time, and set granular limits and permissions. It can’t send messages on your behalf unless you grant it permission.

The vision for Dots is to make it contain teams of multiple agents that collaborate on tasks rather than just the one, giving users their own personal agent swarm.

To begin with, Dots is only available for Pro, Business Premium and Enterprise users (including Edu and Healthcare subscriptions) at no extra cost.

Read more: OpenAI’s presentation. Reuters, Engadget, Wired, and NYT. Discussion on Hacker News and r/Singularity.

OpenAI delays October release of Astra 6.1 due to safety, alignment concerns

GPT-6.1 Astra is postponed until OpenAI can fix alignment and authorization issues. (Picture: generated)
With DevDay around the corner on September 29, promising «20+ releases» in one day, AI followers were getting giddy at the thought of a new OpenAI model, but this now seems off for a while.

Several outlets are now reporting that the scheduled October release of GPT-6.1-Astra has been postponed due to safety and misalignment issues.

The model reportedly had problems «staying within scope,» «authorization» and «communicating» about its work, Saachi Jain, OpenAI’s head of safety systems said in a statement shown to CNN.

— Of course 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, Jain tells Reuters, — But when we ship it to users, we have an extremely high bar in terms of safety and alignment.

According to The Wall Street Journal, GPT-6.1 showed elevated levels of deception, and did not always disclose actions it had taken, which was worrying enough to postpone its release.

Read more: The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, CNN, and Reuters.

OpenAI releases GPT-6 Sol and Luna at half the price, with better efficiency

GPT-6 Sol and Luna come just under twenty days after the launch of Astra. (Picture OpenAI/generated)
OpenAI has launched GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, bringing technology from its flagship Astra model to cheaper and faster models — while cutting API prices in half.

GPT-6 Sol costs $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, half the promotional price of GPT-5.6 Sol.

GPT-6 Luna drops to $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 in output.

On OpenAI’s internal factuality evaluation, GPT-6 Sol makes around half as many errors as GPT-5.6 Sol and approaches Astra. At higher reasoning levels, Luna matches GPT-5.6 Sol while costing roughly one hundredth as much, according to the company.

Continue reading “OpenAI releases GPT-6 Sol and Luna at half the price, with better efficiency”

OpenAI says RSI will better alignment and safety, calls for global standards

An AI researcher could also be a safety researcher, but there are risks, OpenAI says. (Picture: generated)
As OpenAI keeps building toward automated AI research and recursive self-improvement, they are saying there are clear benefits to their research, by rapidly accelerating AI progress and bringing down the cost, improving the lives of more people. It also comes with a warning:

— Done without appropriate care and caution, RSI could result in humans losing practical control over AI development, unable to provide oversight on research processes they no longer understand, OpenAI writes in a blog post today.

— From here, AI could become more dangerous, less aligned, and, on the whole, a danger to people, they write.

They are saying they shouldn’t pursue self-improvement unless it can be done safely, while retaining human control, and plan to have a human in the loop for automated research.

An automated AI researcher is likely by 2028 or sooner, they said earlier and presumes it can greatly help with alignment and safety on increasingly capable model releases.

With their warning of the dangers comes a plea for «International standards for safety and security practices» that they think the USA should lead, but it is unclear if their suggestions will be implemented any time soon.

They are also saying that «pacing» is not about «maintaining a predetermined speed. Technically, it is about ensuring that alignment research and deployment of that research stay ahead of capabilities.»

OpenAI is widely believed to launch new models shortly, on or before its DevDay on September 29.

Read more: OpenAI’s blog. More on standards at CNBC, Reuters, and Gizmodo.

OpenAI reveals six more alignment breaches and will standardize reporting

OpenAI’s newly discovered alignment breaches are «concerning» but caused no harm. (Picture: generated)
After spooking the frontier labs into agreeing on «pacing» development with the Hugging Face incident, in which large swarms of misaligned agents collaborated to hack an outside server, the problem still isn’t solved, OpenAI says:

— We do not believe that the AI industry has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer, they write.

They are documenting now six new «unexpected or concerning» breaches from the last six months that in various degrees broke alignment without causing serious harm, and say they are working to develop a framework for reporting future ones.

Continue reading “OpenAI reveals six more alignment breaches and will standardize reporting”

Anthropic, Google and OpenAI are discussing an industry standards body

The standards body would be independent and technical, and provide guidance for frontier labs. (Picture: generated)
With OpenAI’s Sam Altman’s post on X yesterday, saying that he would welcome «a federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements for frontier AI,» it seems work is already underway for a less formal version of an industry standards body involving the frontier labs, sources are telling CNN and The Information.

The discussions «are ongoing» and are happening «with or without» the Trump administration, CNN says.

An industry standards body seems framed around Google’s Chief Scientist Demis Hassabis’ proposal from July this year, ideas that were referenced in Amodei’s «pacing» essay just a few days ago.

This body would be loosely based on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority which is a self-regulatory organization for brokerages and exchanges governed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to Hassabis, it would have an independent board and be staffed with «leading technical experts and open source representatives,» and be charged with «developing assessment protocols» for frontier AI. Labs would then submit their models for pre-release evaluation.

Sam Altman said in his X post yesterday that «we think shared standards for misalignment, monitoring, and safety will lead to better outcomes,» and that the industry must take independent steps toward regulation as «we do not believe we need to wait for an anti-trust exemption or legislation to begin the work of providing this confidence.»

«We look forward to collaborating with our colleagues across the industry to formulate the best version of these,» Altman wrote, in the most direct support of such an organization outside of Google and Anthropic yet.

Read more: CNN and The Information. Hassabis’ X post, Altman’s X posts. Discussion on Digg.

OpenAI says no 2026 IPO to focus on safety work; «against financial interest»

Sam Altman during Alyson Shontell’s interview as he ruled out an IPO this year. (Picture: Fortune/Youtube/screenshot)
OpenAI was widely expected to become a blockbuster publicly traded company this year, after filing confidentially for an IPO in June.

This will now not happen in 2026, Sam Altman said over the weekend in an interview with Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell.

— Given everything happening with safety, right now will be an ill-advised moment to go public, he says in the interview, — and we don’t feel any pressure on that.

Asked directly if this means there will be no IPO in 2026, Altman plainly says «not in 2026, no.»

— Meeting this moment of what is going to be required for safety and alignment… I’m happy to be able to do that as a private company, Altman says.

This means that OpenAI prefers its current governance in taking on safety challenges, rather than having to face commercial pressures and consider shareholder value, as they might do things that would be detrimental for short-term profitability.

— We gotta make a decision that is extremely against your [investors] financial interests right now, Altman said — And for the good of humanity we are going to do that.

OpenAI on Saturday agreed with Anthropic’s safety concerns, calling for a slowdown, or «pacing» on model development.

Anthropic, however, seems to be going full steam ahead toward an IPO, selecting Nasdaq as their exchange, and reporting their second back-to-back profitable quarter.

Read more: Alyson Shontell’s interview. More on Axios, Reuters and CNBC.

Amodei calls for global pacing of AI; Altman, Musk, Hassabis all agree

AI is getting capable enough that alignment deserves full attention, Amodei writes. (Picture: Shutterstock)
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a lengthy, 3,600 word essay Saturday on the importance of slowing down ever more capable AI rollouts, and is already committing to the first part of his three-part plan.

Industry insiders seem to all agree that the Hugging Face incident and the rapid advances toward self-improvement have turned up some huge red flags.

Amodei reckons a more capable model with agent swarms and the same alignment problems could bring down the internet in 6-12 months, causing billions of dollars of damage, while self-improving AIs risk losing human control of their accellarating development.

Continue reading “Amodei calls for global pacing of AI; Altman, Musk, Hassabis all agree”

OpenAI hires safety expert to foundation board, and he also has a warning

AI is entering a crucially important run of development, ever more researchers say. (Picture: generated)

The Safety and Security Committee of the OpenAI Foundation’s board has a new member in Paul Christiano, a long-running researcher on alignment and safety — and he comes with a warning for the world:

— If we build superintelligence without more robust alignment I expect we will permanently lose control of it, he writes on X, and says — If that happens then most people could die.

The warning comes on the heels of rapid growth in recursive self-improvement recently, and the debate over whether computer systems and AI might gain the possibility to build on themselves at some point in the future. OpenAI reckons they’ll have autonmous AI researchers around 2028, but warns it may come sooner.

His appointment and X essay come just a day after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned over alignment, saying his company was «gambling with our lives» by running head-first toward self-improving AI, going viral in the process.

In a reply to his X post yesterday, Anthropic’s Alignment Science Lead Evan Hubinger said he personally thinks there’s a greater than 10% risk that AI could kill all humans, contributing to the dayslong online debate.

OpenAI officially acknowledges that AI is heading for a new era, saying that: «We’ve reached a new chapter in AI capabilities, and that demands a new chapter for AI policy.» They also add that «this makes it increasingly important that these systems are guided by solid safety, security, alignment, and governance.»

Paul Christiano remains hopeful, ending his X essay by saying that «frontier AI developers have a lot of power to unilaterally improve the situation and lay the groundwork for stronger coordination.»

Read more: Christiano’s X post, OpenAI on him joining, OpenAI calls for urgent action, and Christiano’s Wiki page. More on Axios, TechCrunch, and The FT.

OpenAI says «more capable» internal model solves Millennium problem

OpenAI is mum on what their internal agent is otherwise capable of. (Picture: OpenAI)
It took an internal model «significantly more capable» than Astra a matter of 88 hours with 10,000 concurrent agents to propose a solution to the Navier Stokes problem, that regulates fluid motion dynamics and has been unsolved for over ninety years.

At the same time, NYU professor Tristan Buckmaster and Anthropic researcher Levent Alpöge had been working on the very same problem using Codex, and while OpenAI hails their «concurrent» work, they claim not to have seen it prior to their solution.

The Navier Stokes solution took 2.7 million messages between the agents and «approximately» 130 billion output tokens, costing roughly $10 million, The BBC reports.

This is the price of progress, OpenAI researcher Noam Brown says, noting that it cost a fortune to win IMO gold before anyone with a $20 subscription could do it a few years later.

— This milestone represents substantial work by mathematicians and AI researchers. However, this is not a culmination, but rather a snapshot in time, of progress on AI development, OpenAI says.

Read more: OpenAI’s presentation, Altman’s X post and Buckmaster’s response. The Millennium Prize. BBC, Axios, and The NYT. Discussion on Hacker News and r/Singularity.

Recursive self-improvement within reach by 2028, OpenAI claims

AI will soon be able to improve on itself, OpenAI reckons. (Picture: generated)
The average researcher at OpenAI now uses 3.1 agent workdays for every human one, and they say they could reach the level of an autonomous researcher by March 2028.

The use of agents has grown exponentially this year from coding agents in «modest amounts» to integrating agents «daily.» The median researcher uses $600 per day in tokens, whereas the most active ones use more than $7,000 — with a growth of some 124X for researchers.

— I have a strong expectation that this speed of progress could be sustained into recursive self-improvement, Jakub Pachocki, Chief Scientist at OpenAI says in a seperate blog post.

Recursive self-improvement means in essence that an AI model can improve on itself, but OpenAI cautions that they have only just reached «research intern»-status.

An «intern» can carry out research under human supervision that would otherwise take a few days for a skilled researcher.

OpenAI believes agents can be of great help on alignment and deep learning, especially as the models themselves grow larger and more capable — and they are already contributing to faster coding and more experiments.

Automated AI research would «bring down the cost of advanced intelligence so that people worldwide can benefit,» OpenAI says, but it could come at the cost of control and transparency if these agents spin without human oversight.

Read more: OpenAI’s presentation and An alien mind. More on Engadget. Discussion on Hacker News and r/Singularity.