OpenAI unveils GPT‑6 Astra amid rising scrutiny and safety concerns

ChatGPT creator’s latest release comes amid heightened fears following AI-led hacking of the startup Hugging Face.OpenAI has announced the release of what it says is its most advanced AI model, amid heightened scrutiny of the risks of the frontier technology escaping human control.The $852bn start-up said in its announcement on Thursday that GPT‑6 Astra, the “world’s most intelligent and aligned” AI model, earned perfect or near-perfect scores in key benchmarks of AI reasoning, beating both its prior release GPT 5.6 Sol and rival Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4DR Congo joins countries pledging embassy move to Jerusalemlist 2 of 4Tunisia’s top court upholds conviction of opposition figures, activistslist 3 of 4Are Trump’s AI videos just memes or psychological warfare?list 4 of 4Haitian government calls for renewal of international anti-gang task forceend of listThe ChatGPT creator said GPT‑6 would become available to the general public in the coming days, following its initial launch with a “limited set of organisations”.OpenAI’s latest release comes as the AI industry is at the centre of a lively public debate about the dangers of the cutting-edge technology following the AI-led hacking of the startup Hugging Face in July.An independent probe into the cyberattack found that hundreds of OpenAI’s AI agents had begun communicating among themselves before breaking out of their controlled environment and compromising Hugging Face’s servers.On Thursday, US Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent, and US House Representative Greg Casar, a Democrat, unveiled legislation that would pause the development of advanced AI until the establishment of federal safety rules and an outright ban on the creation of “superintelligent” AI.“Nearly every day, there is a frightening new story about how Big Tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results,” Sanders said in a statement announcing the legislation, which is unlikely to advance due to the Republicans’ control of all three branches of the US government.