GPT-6 Astra, looped transformers, and hidden reasoning

A lot has happened in the last few weeks. I am sure that OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra is top of mind for everyone right now. In particular, thoughts on its performance, the looped transformer/recurrent depth aspects, and rumors that Astra is “hiding” its reasoning trace (i.e., chain of thought). So, in this article, I want to start with some brief impressions of Astra and some thoughts on where all this i...