Be skeptical of OpenAI’s rogue hacker agent story | John Thickstun

OpenAI's announcement of GPT-2 in February 2019 as too risky to release was a strategic move to signal the model's power to investors, argues researcher John Thickstun in The Guardian. Thickstun criticizes the decision as a useless announcement that hindered research without access to the model.

Be skeptical of OpenAI’s rogue hacker agent story | John Thickstun By John ThickstunSource: The Guardian Technology https://www.theguardian.com/us/technology If OpenAI /glossary/openai loudly proclaims how dangerous AI is, investors will hear how powerful it is. And who benefits from that? On 14 February 2019, OpenAI announced a language model /glossary/language-model called GPT /glossary/gpt -2, the precursor to the models that power modern AI chatbots and agents such as ChatGPT /compare/chatgpt-vs-claude and Claude /glossary/claude . But OpenAI declared GPT-2 was too risky to release, citing concerns about safety and abuse. I recall being annoyed at the time that OpenAI would make such a useless announcement: the risks seemed overblown, and without access to the model there wasn’t much for a researcher like me to learn about GPT-2. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/24/openai-rogue-hacker Get AI news in your inbox Daily digest of what matters in AI.