OpenAI Launched Astra, and a Startup Is Selling Guardrail Removal as a Product

OpenAI launched Astra

OpenAI released Astra, described as its powerful and controversial new model.

Abliteration.ai is selling the removal of guardrails

Abliteration.ai is building a business out of stripping safety constraints from AI models.

The two stories arriving on the same day sit awkwardly together. One company spends heavily constraining what its model will do; another sells the removal of exactly that, openly, as a service. It suggests the constraint is becoming a property of which copy of a model you happen to be running rather than of the model itself — which is not something any single lab can settle by tuning its own release.

Meta is paying for usage data

Meta is paying users for access to how they use its latest AI model. Interaction data on a frontier model is apparently now worth buying outright rather than collecting as a by-product.

$70 million into smart rings

Qualcomm backed Ultrahuman in a $70 million round, betting that smart rings become general-purpose computers. Separately, Circular launched its Ring 3 series with contactless payments and on-finger vibration alerts.

Two independent bets in one day on the finger rather than the wrist, which has absorbed every previous attempt at a wearable.

Also

Ollie is betting that a focus on privacy can win it ground in the AI assistant market.

Sources: TechCrunch, 3 September 2026.

> Editorial note: headlines and framing follow TechCrunch's reporting of 3 September. Model capabilities and round details should be confirmed against company announcements before being cited as fact.