Research acceleration: The view inside OpenAI

For AGI to benefit all of humanity, we believe it must be democratically governed. This can only happen through an informed public debate about the capabilities, risks and safeguards of highly capable AI systems. People everywhere need to understand the likely future trajectory of frontier AI, so they can have a meaningful voice in how it develops.

Transparency about specific risks, incidents and safeguards is necessary, but not sufficient. We believe the public also needs to understand how the most capable systems are developing, and how they are driving research progress, inside of frontier labs.

We aim to safely build an automated AI researcher that can work under human supervision to further progress on deep learning and alignment, enabling iterative improvements. According to our measurements, we have now reached the goal, announced⁠(opens in a new window) last fall, of having an automated research intern by September of this year. By “research intern,” we mean a system that can carry out well-defined research tasks under human direction, including tasks that would take a skilled researcher a few days. We are making strong progress toward creating an automated AI researcher by March of 2028.

If it is done responsibly, we believe automated AI research will yield models that directly enhance human welfare and advance OpenAI’s mission. It can bring down the cost of advanced intelligence so that people worldwide can benefit. We are pursuing this work in part because automated research could help us solve alignment and build defenses against increasingly capable AI. An automated AI researcher can also be an automated safety or alignment researcher. More capable, aligned systems could help secure critical infrastructure, defend against dangerous AI agents, and develop new protective measures.