OpenAI limits GPT-5.6 rollout after government request, says restrictions shouldn’t be the norm

Oh, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and the U.S. government's mind is positively vast. After months of huffing and puffing, it finally released Anthropic's Mythos 5 to over 100 US institutions — a model previously deemed too risky for general release. Now, with a straight face, it has asked OpenAI to limit GPT-5.6 — comprising Sol, Terra, and Luna — to a 'small group of trusted partners.' Because nothing says coherent policy like blocking a model, then releasing it, then asking another company to keep its next-gen models under wraps. Cue OpenAI's compliant shrug.

The lineup itself — Sol, Terra, Luna — reads like a celestial theme park, which is appropriate, because we're all spinning in circles. OpenAI has dutifully complied, offering the obligatory 'restrictions shouldn't be the norm' hand-wringing, even as they enforce them. One imagines the lab's executives pursing their lips while signing the restriction order, muttering about the temporary nature of this inconvenience. Meanwhile, the government's ad-hoc approach continues: pick a model, any model, and decide its fate on a whim. The difference? Anthropic got the thumbs-up; OpenAI got a warning.

But cheer up: OpenAI says this isn't the new normal. Of course, that's precisely what one says when the new normal is already here. The real joke is that both sides agree: restrictions are bad, yet here we are, repeating the same pantomime with different actors. The government gets to play gatekeeper, OpenAI gets to claim reluctant compliance, and the rest of us get to wonder which model gets the next arbitrary thumbs-up or thumbs-down. At least the naming — Sol, Terra, Luna — offers a cosmic metaphor: we're orbiting the sun of hype, grounded by Terra's regulatory gravity, and dreaming of a Luna that might never arrive.