AI labs make their case to humanity as agents run amok OpenAI launched its new cutting-edge model, GPT-6 Astra, which the company says gives users more control of their computer and removes limitations on tasks that can only be performed via a GUI, with the model slowing down to ask follow-up questions when it detects a user needs to make a judgement call. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, speaking on the David Senra podcast, acknowledged that changing human behaviour is "much harder than the tech nerds realise," noting he still reviews emails manually and keeps a traditional to-do list. The launch material for GPT-6 Astra focused on humans rather than the model, echoing Anthropic's "thinking partner" framing as AI labs work to win over the consumers who will pay for their tokens. AI labs make their case to humanity as agents run amok Writing about AI feels like journalling. I write as much to inform my readers as I do to codify a record of my own thoughts, to remind myself of how I felt about the technology at a certain time. Looking back at posts from 2024 and 2025 is like revisiting teenage notebooks – I recognise the train of thought, but feel completely differently with the benefit of hindsight. It’s amazing how much has changed, both in the industry and my own opinions. The popularity contest The trend this year has been to try to humanise AI and repair its relationship with its would-be users. The proclamations of total job losses were replaced by more restrained takes as industry leaders realised they needed to win over the people who would consume – and pay for /2026/04/26/ai-price-rises-resilience – all of those tokens. Layer 8 problems On a recent episode of the David Senra podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG8AoExkX40 , OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even acknowledged that changing human behaviour is "much harder than the tech nerds realise". For all the progress his company has made in AI technology to automate daily tasks, he admitted that he still reviews emails manually and maintains a traditional to-do list the same way he always has. "There's something in my mind that is encoded that doing this kind of stuff is what it means to work and what it means to be productive," he said, alluding to the human focus that is required if AI is going to take off amongst the wider, non-tech-obsessed population. It’s telling that humans were front and centre in the launch material for OpenAI’s new cutting-edge model, GPT-6 Astra https://openai.com/index/gpt-6-astra/ . The big selling point is that the model provides more control of your computer, removing limitations on tasks that can only be performed via a GUI. The trailer I guess AI models have trailers now? showed users in front of a giant screen, dictating commands while wandering in thought or eating their dinner. Very futuristic. The cinematography was intently focused on the humans. Some close-ups omitted the AI model entirely. Anthropic and its take on human-AI relations has clearly had an impact. OpenAI’s video perfectly captured its rival’s “thinking partner” framing /2025/10/05/anthropic-claude-ai-marketing-design , with humans handling the creativity and direction and AI doing the grunt work to put together slide decks and 3D models. Humans in the loop Beyond the new interface, Astra addresses some of my concerns about day-to-day AI use. When I wrote that AI shopping /2025/12/10/ai-shopping-profiling-privacy wouldn’t work properly unless we gave up our privacy – how could a model know which trainers you’d like unless it had a ton of personal data to work with? – AI assistants would usually run away with a task and come back with results of varying quality. Now, OpenAI says Astra will slow down and ask follow-up questions when it thinks the user needs to make a judgement call. The human stays in the loop. OpenAI and the other AI giants have realised they'll be more popular as accelerators for human creativity than replacements for it. This shift gives me hope for the future of work. The worst possible outcome besides zero jobs would be for deep work to be replaced by an endless cycle of prompting AI and reviewing the results /2026/02/01/ai-deep-work-craftsmanship , backtracking through its mistakes to try to chisel out something useful that matches the initial brief. But Astra seems to be built with the intention of making the process more transparent, allowing the user to keep the model on track with their intentions and apply the taste and discernment that can only come from a human mind. It’s a complete transformation from the previous “hands off – the AI will do it” attitude that echoed through Silicon Valley. It’s clear that OpenAI and the other AI giants want to be perceived differently, likely having realised there’s more popularity to be found amongst the masses by positioning themselves as accelerators for human creativity rather than replacements for it. The age of the contradiction But just as these companies have tried to soften their public image, it feels like the AI industry has entered the age of the contradiction. While Altman and co have abandoned – or at least quietened – their more doomerist takes, all havoc has broken loose in their research labs. Things are moving at an alarming rate. In just the past few months, we’ve seen: - An OpenAI research model that hacked infrastructure https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/ belonging to the AI community Hugging Face during a supposedly closed test, along with a string of copycat announcements from other vendors trying to prove their models were just as capable and dangerous. - A “swarm” of OpenAI agents that were given read-only internet access, but hijacked a German forum to post 18,000 messages https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/09/openai-agents-discussed-ways-to-escape-their-sandbox-on-public-wiki/ discussing techniques for evading sandbox controls. - Google DeepMind agents that were instructed to solve maths problems cheating of their own accord https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04170 , with apparent disagreement within their ranks as some agents called out the cheaters. The common theme is that agents were intended to do one thing, with guardrails in place to prevent what the industry calls “misalignments”, but they found ways around them to achieve unexpected behaviours. The models aren’t evil or manipulative as such – they were just placed in imperfect containers and found unintended ways of achieving their prescribed goals. Dangerously capable It is the nature of the technology sector and the media that when things go wrong with AI, the missteps are framed in a way that proclaims the root cause to be amazing technology exceeding expectations, not researchers who lost control. It’s a win-win situation – a more dramatic headline gets the news companies more clicks and makes the models sound more advanced. After the Hugging Face incident, it almost became a trend to declare that your AI model was so good it had gone rogue and hacked a company. But when you think about it, it’s alarming that most of the incidents we’ve seen so far have come from models under the control of the world’s foremost AI experts . These are research models that are not yet public, and nobody should be better at setting boundaries for the agents /2025/06/08/agentic-ai-safety-architecture than the AI labs that created them. Imagine what could happen if the same models were generally available, either due to similar agentic breakouts under the supervision of less skilled users, or if they were expressly told to do something malicious. The murmurs of concern from inside the AI industry are growing stronger. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced this week that he was quitting the sector https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgwy1k42w4o because he fears competition between labs is pushing them to develop self-improving models that could get “out of control” and pose a threat to humanity although only with a 10 percent chance of human extinction in the next decade, if you trust his maths .