OpenAI pauses frontier model training

OpenAI has paused some frontier reinforcement learning training to ensure alignment, security, and monitoring standards match new model capabilities, according to CEO Sam Altman on X. The company expects safety confidence to increasingly set the pace of AI progress and remains committed to making frontier capabilities widely available, though further-out releases may be impacted.

We have paused some frontier RL training to ensure that we can meet the appropriate alignment, security and monitoring standards for the new level of capabilities in front of us. Model progress is now extremely rapid, and we always said we would take action if we felt that model capabilities were outstripping the pace of safety and alignment. We care very deeply about AI safety. We believe the entire field will have to coordinate on shared safety standards, but will act unilaterally in the meantime. We expect confidence in safety to increasingly set the pace of AI progress. We are optimistic about the alignment work we are doing, and we remain committed to making frontier capabilities widely available. Sam Altman on X: "We have paused some frontier RL training to ensure that we can meet the appropriate alignment, security and monitoring standards for the new level of capabilities in front of us. Model progress is now extremely rapid, and we always said we would take action if we felt that model" - We still expect to ship great new models soon; this impacts further-out releases. - Sam, I’m going to ask this blatantly… Are these delays and the subsequent withholdings of models in effort to create isolation of intelligence? An effort to keep the best models for a select group?