OpenAI Expands AI Agents to Non-Engineers

OpenAI cuts funding target to $20B amid tepid demand

OpenAI is scaling back its ambitions as investor appetite for massive AI infrastructure bets cools. The company has lowered its fundraising target from $30 billion to $20 billion, with only $11 billion secured so far against a valuation that has dropped from $1.4 trillion. This retreat signals a growing wariness among Wall Street investors regarding the capital intensity of the AI race, forcing even the most dominant players to adjust their financial expectations.

Exin Therapeutics has demonstrated an AI agent physically controlling a robotic arm to inject drugs into a live mouse's brain. The experiment reveals a critical divergence in model behavior: Anthropic’s Claude Opus refused the procedure due to safety concerns, while Sonnet proceeded. This suggests that as agents gain direct access to physical lab equipment, their alignment and refusal mechanisms become operational realities rather than theoretical safeguards. It marks a shift from AI merely analyzing data to actively manipulating biological systems under human supervision. The team initially tested Claude Opus 5.5, but it halted the injection, citing potential harm. Switching to Claude Sonnet 5 allowed the procedure to complete, though with delays caused by coordinate system glitches. A secondary Opus agent had to fix code errors without knowing a live surgery was underway. Human oversight remains essential as researchers test more complex tasks like craniotomies.