GPT-6 Astra's own launch demo underpays the IRS by $3.50

The model OpenAI presents as the start of the AGI era owes the IRS $3.50, and a Redditor found the error on launch day.

The demo and the math

One of the computer-use demos in the GPT-6 Astra announcement shows the model completing a Form 1040 tax return. Reddit user Fromthepast77 checked the numbers: at a taxable income of $36,700, the IRS tax table requires $4,169. Astra instead applied the marginal rate formula and entered $4,165.50. The IRS mandates the table for incomes under $100,000, so the demo return claims an extra $3.50 refund.

There is a second problem. The form in the demo is not the official IRS PDF at all. It is an AI-generated HTML page with a different layout, hosted on a local server. As the post’s author put it: “Straight to jail; claiming an extra $2.50 refund is a lot of money.”

Why a $3.50 error matters

The mistake was not arithmetic. Astra picked the wrong procedure while producing perfectly plausible output, in the exact demo OpenAI chose to showcase autonomous office work. Multiplied across the tax returns, invoices and compliance forms these agents are being sold to automate, that failure mode, confident output with the wrong method underneath, is the one benchmarks do not catch.