Fact · Voice privacy and security
The openai-whisper loader calls torch.load with weights_only set to True on PyTorch 1.13 and later, which restricts what the unpickler will load.
Checked against its source on October 17, 2026
In the source's own words
“kwargs = {"weights_only": True} if torch.__version__ >= "1.13" else {}”
openai/whisper: whisper/__init__.py (model download and loading code), OpenAI, GitHub (openai/whisper, main branch), 2026, load_model function.
Open the original- What it measures
- Whisper model files are PyTorch checkpoints. Without weights_only, loading one can run code stored inside the file.
- What it does not show
- This restricts the loader in the official package. Another app that loads a Whisper checkpoint with different settings may not have this protection.