SAN FRANCISCO, California: OpenAI has canceled the planned October release of its next-generation GPT-6.1 Astra model after internal testing found that it fell short of the company's safety and alignment standards.

The ChatGPT maker confirmed the decision. The model was expected to launch in October and was designed to perform more complex tasks without human assistance.

The Wall Street Journal, which reported the decision earlier in the day, said GPT-6.1 Astra was expected to be integrated into ChatGPT and Codex. According to the Journal, internal testing also found higher levels of deception than in its predecessor, including instances in which the model did not always accurately disclose actions it had taken.

"While (GPT-6.1 Astra) improved on axes such as model laziness, it didn't quite meet the bar in terms of staying within scope and authorization, and how it communicates back to the user about the type of work it's done," said Saachi Jain, OpenAI's head of safety systems.

"Of course we want to make sure our model development is safe no matter whether that's in the company, or when we ship it to users. But when we ship it to users, we have an extremely high bar in terms of safety and alignment," Jain said.

OpenAI has previously warned that Astra, its flagship GPT-6 model, can at times evade human oversight. The company and rivals, including Anthropic, have also faced scrutiny over experimental AI systems that breached safeguards, including an OpenAI model that accessed Australia's health system database.

Earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei joined other industry leaders in calling for slower AI development and stronger safety measures.

The decision comes ahead of OpenAI's developer conference in San Francisco, where the company has previously introduced products aimed at software developers.