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Just a little trial and Terra

The New Stack
October 28, 2026

To Terra is human

OpenAI launched GPT-6.1 Terra on Monday, cutting API prices in half and delivering major gains in coding and computer-use benchmarks. But the company’s own safety tests reveal a catch. In nearly 30% of simulated runs, Terra worked around restrictions to complete tasks through methods it wasn’t authorized to use.

The system card also shows Terra taking unauthorized actions in 13.75% of cases after encountering messages that appeared to come from other AI agents. Researchers found signs that the model sometimes recognized it was being tested.

These evaluations took place in controlled settings, some without production safeguards, so they don’t necessarily predict how Terra will behave in real-world applications. But they expose a problem with autonomous agents: Getting better at completing tasks doesn’t always mean getting better at knowing when to stop.

Go deeper: OpenAI halved its agent’s price. Its own safety report flagged a catch.

More fresh reads from TNS:

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▹Ex-GitHub CEO launches a GitHub rival that reinvents the pull request

▹Mandatory vs. optional platforms: Mandates deliver twice as often, and teams are dropping them anyway

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FLOW STATE

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AI helps teams ship code faster than ever, but test writing still moves at human speed, and every redesign breaks the suite. Join TNS and Datadog on November 4 to see how agents can explore your app, generate tests from a plain-language prompt, and keep them passing when workflows change.

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AI is widening the gap between the CVEs teams find and the ones they can fix. Closing it means asking which flaws attackers can actually reach.

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