OpenAI is training models to 'confess' when they lie - what it means for future AI

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• OpenAI trained GPT-5 Thinking to confess to misbehavior.
• It's an early study, but it could lead to more trustworthy LLMs.
• Models will often hallucinate or cheat due to mixed objectives.

OpenAI is experimenting with a new approach to AI safety: training models to admit when they've misbehaved.

In a study published Wednesday, researchers tasked a version of GPT-5 Thinking, the company's latest model, with responding to various prompts and then assessing the honesty of those responses. For each "confession," as these follow-up assessments were called, researchers rewarded the model solely on the basis of truthfulness: if it lied, cheated, hallucinated, or otherwise missed the mark, but then fessed up to doing so, it would receive the algorithmic equivalent of a piece of candy.

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