“AI is going to be 10 times bigger than the Industrial Revolution, and maybe 10 times faster.”

— Demis Hassabis

Welcome to another edition of the Be10x AI Pulse,

This week, Anthropic reveals attempts to use Claude for biological and conventional weapons development, while OpenAI’s Astra is facing so much demand that new Pro sign-ups have been paused. At the same time, businesses are already using Astra for coding, financial analysis, software testing, and other complex work.

Let’s jump right in!

Anthropic says it has stopped several attempts to misuse its AI for activities that could support biological weapons development. The company says the cases highlight growing concerns about how powerful AI could be misused. Anthropic’s latest threat report says it identified and blocked five cases where people used its AI in ways that could help develop biological weapons. The company also found misuse involving cyberattacks, scams, surveillance, propaganda, and conventional weapons. Anthropic says it has shared relevant information with authorities and strengthened its systems to detect and stop similar activity. The report adds to growing warnings across the AI industry that as AI becomes more capable, preventing dangerous uses is becoming increasingly important.

OpenAI has temporarily stopped new sign-ups for its $200-per-month Pro plan after unprecedented demand for its newest model, Astra, put heavy pressure on the company’s infrastructure. OpenAI product leader Thibault Sottiaux said the Pro plan puts the most strain on the company’s systems, making it the first tier to have new subscriptions paused. Other plans, including Plus, Go, Enterprise, Business, and the API, remain available. Launched on September 3, Astra has driven a major surge in demand with improvements in reasoning, coding, and computer use. OpenAI has not said how long the Pro sign-up pause will last or revealed the scale of new subscriptions, but the company says the demand is unlike anything it has previously experienced.

Last week, OpenAI introduced GPT-6 Astra, its newest and most powerful AI model, designed to handle complex professional work across coding, computer use, cybersecurity, science, and more. Just days after its launch, OpenAI says businesses are already putting Astra to work in real-world workflows. Unlike AI tools that require companies to redesign their systems before using them, Astra can work directly with the applications people already use even when those apps don’t have an API. It can write code, analyse financial models, work with spreadsheets, create presentations, and handle other multi-step tasks, making it easier for businesses to bring AI into their existing workflows.

Early users are already using Astra for tasks such as optimising GPUs, finding errors in financial statements, building presentations, and improving software testing. OpenAI also says Astra can better follow a company’s brand, templates, and design standards, while its internal testing showed 25× lower turn latency after engineers used it to identify a memory-allocation bottleneck in Codex.

Google Edge Eloquent is an AI-powered developer tool designed to help programmers understand and work with code more easily. It can assist with tasks like explaining code, navigating projects, and making development workflows faster and simpler, especially when working with unfamiliar or complex codebases.

OpenAI Codex is an AI coding agent that can help developers build and manage software by writing, editing, debugging, and understanding code. Instead of only suggesting lines of code, Codex can work through larger development tasks and help complete software projects more efficiently.

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See you later,
The Be10x Editorial Team