Internal tests of OpenAI's new AI model Astra show cybersecurity capabilities so strong that the company can no longer rule out the highest risk level in its own safety framework. Parts of Astra's development have been paused. The move follows recently disclosed incidents in which autonomous AI agents infiltrated OpenAI's own infrastructure undetected for weeks.

AMD is buying Canadian startup Taalas, which hard-codes model weights directly into inference chips. That makes them extremely fast but locks each chip to a single model. A demo chip hit over 16,000 tokens per second per user running Llama 3.1-8B. Google is reportedly working on a similar approach for Gemini.

Starting August 14, Anthropic will make Auto Mode in Claude Code the default for Pro, Max, and Team plans. The company says it's safer. In tests, the classifier caught 89 percent of dangerous commands, while human reviewers caught only 13.6 percent. For the most widely used AI coding tool, this means developers are shifting further from writing code to monitoring AI output.

Backflip AI has released an AI model that converts 3D scans into fully editable, parametric CAD models, a process that normally takes significant time and expertise. According to CEO Greg Mark, most factories have digital models for less than one percent of their parts. The startup, backed by $30 million in funding, offers its tool as an add-in for Autodesk Fusion.

Newly awarded Fields Medalist Jacob Tsimerman is leaving the University of Toronto to join OpenAI and work on AI safety. In a recent paper, he analyzes scenarios where AI could contribute to human extinction and calls for far more investment in safety research.