OpenAI drops GPT-6 Astra; author burns 4B tokens and builds 'nothing really'

The first GPT-6 model

OpenAI released Astra, the first GPT-6 family model. The author burned 4B tokens over the weekend and built 'nothing really,' but admits it might be a skill issue. Astra tops ARC-AGI-3 and Zapier's AutomationBench, priced same as Fable 5.1. It's spiky—great at some tasks, not consistently strong. People are using it to rebuild Manhattan in Unreal Engine, generate UIs, 3D-print parts, and identify sounds from spectrograms. In Codex, Astra can skip waiting for user answers and continue working. OpenAI also hit its 'automated research intern' goal, targeting an automated AI researcher by March 2028. Anthropic is testing Claude Code plugins for extended functionality, not shipped yet.