Ultraman Closing Keynote Astra: It Will ‘Truly Invent Something New,’ ‘This is Very Much Like AGI’

Insightful Beating AI News Flash: OpenAI recently held an Astra closed-door preview, where dozens of executives from key clients were invited to the newly opened MB0 office building in San Francisco. Altman had just returned from Washington, where he had presented Astra to U.S. officials behind closed doors. Outside the door, there were protesters holding signs demanding the "Stop AI Race," prompting OpenAI to even set up a whole plant wall to block the protesters outside the glass door.

The main demonstrations on-site showcased two capabilities. The first was a research-level math problem, where 16 AI agents broke down the problem into multiple sub-problems, worked on them separately, coordinated with each other, and finally pieced together a candidate proof.

The second demonstration involved direct computer manipulation. Astra swiftly switched between multiple common desktop applications, creating and modifying content on its own. Altman said that witnessing it operate the computer in a "superhuman, incredibly fast" manner was one of the most awe-inspiring experiences for OpenAI staff recently. He mentioned that Astra will bring about persistent agents, which are "virtual colleagues" capable of working continuously for extended periods.

Astra also met OpenAI's internal standard for "AI Research Interns." Present it with an experimental idea, and it can independently implement it in OpenAI's codebase, run experiments, and provide results; give it a research paper, and it can accomplish work that previously took a human researcher a week to complete.

Altman believes that Astra's most important ability is in discovering new knowledge. In front of these clients, he stated, "I anticipate that this will be the first model to truly invent something meaningful." He then added, "This is very much like AGI."