OpenAI chases business bucks with confusingly named Frontier platform

OpenAI, a maker of frontier models, has announced a platform called Frontier to help enterprises implement software agents. That's not confusing at all.

The AI biz wants to make it easier for risk-averse organizations to automate workflows with machine learning models, something companies have been loath to do because pilot tests of AI agents often fail to demonstrate meaningful value.

OpenAI's adoption of the term "frontier" is particularly confusing given that the company started using it to describe AI models in 2023, shortly before it announced the formation of the Frontier Model Forum.

"The Forum defines frontier models as large-scale machine-learning models that exceed the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing models, and can perform a wide variety of tasks," the AI biz explained at the time.

Frontier models thus did not exist – being beyond existing models – but were somehow what forum members developed and deployed ...