OpenAI withholds the full GPT-2 model (2019)
In February 2019, OpenAI built a text generator called GPT-2 but declined to release the full version, saying it could mass-produce fake news and spam. It put out smaller versions over nine months instead.
Researchers split over whether the move was prudent or hype. OpenAI released the full model in November 2019 after seeing little real misuse.
Staged, risk-weighted release became a standard playbook for frontier AI labs.
Anthropic is running the same logic at larger scale: ship the capability, but gate the riskiest parts and meter out the least-restricted version.
