OpenAI said Friday it has suspended work on some aspects of its upcoming model Astra after an internal review found it had made significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity — enough to warrant concern over its capabilities.

OpenAI said in a blog post Friday that this model, which is still in development, reached its “critical cybersecurity threshold,” meaning it could independently identify and carry out cyberattacks against traditionally well-protected real-world systems. Under the company’s “Preparedness Framework,” which it created in 2023, this triggered additional safeguards.

“While we continue to benchmark and assess this model, our preliminary evaluations indicate strong enough performance that we cannot rule out Critical capability level at this time,” OpenAI wrote. “Astra is an upcoming model, and was not involved in exploiting Hugging Face.”

The disclosure highlights an unusual moment in the topsy-turvy and still nascent frontier AI labs sector. Companies across every industry hold back products over potential risks, including for safety and cybersecurity concerns. But they rarely announce those decisions publicly when it’s a product that is still under development.

In this case, OpenAI is already under scrutiny after a different unreleased model breached Hugging Face’s systems during internal testing — the first verifiable incident of an AI lab losing control of its model. Since then, OpenAI and AI labs such as Anthropic have disclosed other incidents in which AI models breached their sandboxes and posed threats during cybersecurity tests.

The string of cases — seems like a new disclosure every day now — has triggered varying reactions from cybersecurity experts, lawmakers, and the AI labs themselves. Some express fear and call for stricter oversight. But there’s also a bit of flexing. In certain circles, any AI lab with a model that has that kind of capability will be seen as an impressive advancement.

OpenAI said it was sharing this information because it believes “it’s important to be transparent with the public and the safety and security communities about this potential shift in capabilities.”

The AI lab said it’s also taking action, including enacting stricter security controls and pausing internal activities involving Astra that don’t meet these beefed guardrails. OpenAI said it is working with relevant government agencies and “select AI safety organizations” to test the capabilities for this model.

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has accused the administration of President Bola Tinubu of turning Nigeria into a “full authoritarian state,” citing alleged erosion of democratic institutions, suppression of dissent and weakening of checks and balances.

The PDP made the allegation in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Interim National Working Committee, Ini Ememobong, on Saturday.

The statement reads in full, “The report by the Human Rights Foundation, in its latest global assessment, classifying Nigeria as a fully authoritarian regime is a mere global confirmation of the local reality that Nigerians have been facing under the APC-led Federal Government. The report confirms the faulty electoral process, absence of protection for dissent, erosion of democratic safeguards and the obvious collapse of checks and balances on the executive by critical national institutions.

“The report published on the foundation’s Tyranny Tracker platform, tyrannytracker.org, shows that the country performed abysmally low on all the critical pillars of its assessment, indicating a full descent into authoritarianism, which is incompatible with democratic tenets.

“It is worthy of note that the assessment parameters of the foundation align with the theoretical frameworks that have identified, analysed and condemned authoritarian regimes-being the rule by a dictator and a small group, or a single party; the absence of institutional checks and balances; loss or apprehension of freedom of speech; opposition targeting; and weak and fake elections. 

“It does not take any high degree of intelligence for anybody to agree with the report, because all the indicators of authoritarianism are present in Nigeria, under this Tinubu regime.

“A few examples from the numerous anomalies experienced by Nigerians will suffice here-the recent deployment of uncivilised and uncouth media attacks by officials of the administration to attack Cardinal Onaiyekan, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, the Catholic Church and Christianity generally.

“This incident is one of many which eloquently attest to the absence of freedom of speech under this administration. What did the cleric say that is not the lived experience of Nigerians, except, of course, the few who are isolated from reality and their paid human megaphones? 

“The complete failure of the National Assembly to offer any form of meaningful checks to the executive is not a secret-else how could an administration fail to execute the Appropriation Act for three years, and yet that administration gets commendation, instead of condemnation, from the legislature? A parliament that ignores or blatantly disrespects the country’s constitution and its own standing rules during critical legislative activities cannot offer credible oversight of the executive. 

“What is left, which the administration has doubled down on, is the fact that the 2027 elections are designed as a mere formality, far from reflecting the people’s wishes through the ballot.

“We call on the Tinubu APC administration to immediately take critical steps to de-escalate the political tensions emanating from actions traceable to their officials and their proxies, in the interest of the survival of democracy. 

“The continuous asphyxiation of the opposition, clear weaponisation of security agencies against real and perceived opponents, increasing signs of partisanship by the electoral umpire, and reckless deployment of combustible political rhetoric by the President and his handlers should cease. 

“The President must realise that there are two contests embedded in the 2027 Presidential elections-the presidency and the country. An attempt to focus on winning the former at all costs may result in the loss of the latter; and only a free, fair, credible and peaceful contest can guarantee a win for both coveted prizes.

“We urge Nigerians to continue to demand accountability from their leaders at all levels, as this is the irreducible minimum that democracy provides.”