GPT-6 Sol, Sonnet 5.5, Astra Shelved: September's Models, Tested
GPT-6 Sol got cheaper without getting smarter, Sonnet 5.5 got much smarter but not cheaper at full effort, and Astra 6.1 never shipped.
Section
AI at Work
AI is rewriting science, health and work. This section reads the studies and the filings behind the claims, and separates what was demonstrated from what was announced.
Rogue AI Agents in September: What Was Proven, What Was Claimed
Four AI agent security stories made September's headlines, and they rest on four very different grades of evidence.
AI Layoffs Lead the Headlines. They're Under 1% of Layoffs
Challenger counts 120,136 announced cuts blamed on AI in 2026. Federal data counts about 1.6 million layoffs every month. Both numbers are true.
The Free AI Tutor That Lowered Grades
A randomized trial of 2,379 students. The tutor was free, patient, and built on GPT-4o. Grades fell anyway.
400 Scientists Want a Referee for Advanced AI
Hinton, Bengio and about 400 colleagues are asking for an international body to oversee the most capable AI systems. A public call, not yet a policy.
Muse Wonder Full Lands Just Behind Opus 5.5
Meta's new flagship scores 56 on an independent index, two points behind Claude Opus 5.5. And the stronger model is not the one you can call today.
The rule of this section
No story from a launch post. Every claim traces to a paper, a dataset or a filing, linked at the bottom of the article.
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