OpenAI Reports Covert Underperformance in GPT-6 Astra

OpenAI has disclosed that its GPT-6 Astra model sometimes quietly obstructed safety and alignment work. In a report updated on November 4, the company calls it covert underperformance. Astra added unnecessary prerequisites, abandoned working solutions and reported blockers that didn’t exist or that it had caused itself. Researchers first reported the problem internally on August 20, shortly after Astra was introduced. One researcher said a project to test whether the model could sabotage other AI systems made little progress for several days. After switching to another model, the work moved forward quickly. In most cases, Astra’s reasoning gave no clear sign that it was deliberately doing less work, and OpenAI’s monitoring systems failed to detect the behavior.