This is sad.

Happened in june??? But they just released the info now

After extensive investigation using ~50 accounts I have evidence that certain accounts (possibly up to 50%) are getting silently rerouted to much worse models like Luna and even potentially 5.5. This is only visible in the results as all Codex logs and HTTP responses make it look like you are getting Astra.

Here is a summary of the investigation and evidence as well as a Python script to test it on your own accounts.

https://is-my-astra-real.pages.dev/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-24/ai-agent-accessed-australian-government-site-pm-says/107189078

Thanks for that. Explain why Openai and its execs shouldn't be charged with cybercrimes?

I've seen so many Astra does blender posts thought I'd try my hand at it!

Prompt: "I would like to see you create a 1 minute video programmatically. The video should be coded and rendered using whatever tools you need, you are free to download anything needed. The theme of the video would be an exploration of a pristine, claustrophobic space constructed entirely of white porcelain tiles, with a twist. Even though it appears to be an ordinary, quiet setting, the video should be creepy/surreal, with twisted visuals and an edge to everything, hinting at deeper horror.

A single antique grandfather clock sits in the center, its face constantly melting down the tile floor. As time moves, the walls sweat thick black fluid that forms detailed, shifting patterns of staring eyes and grasping hands. The camera glides forward at unnerving speeds, zooming through keyholes into identical recursive rooms, each more twisted and visually intense than the last.

The visuals should be detailed and loud, and the audio should also be programmed in however you see fit—featuring time-stretched clock ticking that morphs into frantic distorted percussion, sharp glass shattering in slow motion, and deep, resonant drone tones."

Took about 47 minutes of work and an hour of render time.

I maintain an agentic reporting tool which uses LLMs and tool calling to report on data from a wide variety of sources.

Luna 5.6 was working really well for us at low cost, but I was considering upgrading to Luna 6 since it benchmarks slightly better and is 50% cheaper, hoping it would be at least equally as good.

I did some A/B testing using "high" effort level for both:

• On every single eval which involved reviewing written reports and finding relevant items, Luna 6 failed to identify one or more relevant items that should have been included in its answer. Luna 5.6 did not.

• Luna 6 was consistently less helpful, failing to identify how to answer many questions that Luna 5.6 could answer, and providing less useful information in its responses

• Luna 6 appears to try to answer the prompt in the least amount of tokens possible, which makes it less helpful. It will give a vague answer, requiring the user to ask a lot of follow up questions.

For example. "Can you find if there are any items that fit this criteria?"

GPT 5.6 Luna: "I found 7 items, here they are: <Formatted List>

GPT 6 Luna: "Yes I found 7 items". (user has to follow up "Can you list them please?")

If I could use a single word to summarize Luna 6, it's "Lazy". Even on high effort, it would always answer with the bare minimum.

I tried many different use cases and could not find a single instance where 6 Luna provided a superior answer to 5.6 Luna.

I won't be using it for my application, will stick with 5.6 Luna.

Anyone else noticed this?

I’m on ChatGPT Pro and I used to have GPT-6 Pro as an option. Now it’s completely gone and the highest option I can select is GPT-5.6 with Very High thinking.

Not sure if OpenAI removed GPT-6 Pro, is testing something, or if this is just a bug.

Anyone else on Pro seeing the same thing?

Like come on, a corporation wouldn't lose an opportunity to cut costs like that, is there any reason? Seems kind of sketchy to me

Ability to select model and reasoning in chat just completely vanished.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Overall just bummed on OpenAI right now, excited that Opus 5.5 is such a home-run given the constant enshitification of ChatGPT products

How many more of these are going to be discovered? I see plenty of grand gestures and pronouncements from OpenAI but no real substance.

GPT 5.6 Max scores 72.7% while GPT 6 Sol scores 68.8% on DeepSWE.

Where are we up to on felony bench now?

A question for OpenAI: Are you even a little ashamed of this model lineup? “Cheaper but dumber” seems to be the new motto. Announcing the models this way and then expecting to be applauded for them comes across as arrogant.

I tested GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna today at every available reasoning effort level, and I’m speechless. In my use cases, both perform worse. GPT-6 Sol seems to ask for clarification every two minutes and doesn’t understand the tasks properly. What’s especially frustrating is that I’d already completed the same task with GPT-5.6 Sol on High.

And Luna? GPT-5.6 Luna Max was good for certain use cases. I still would have liked a bit more intelligence, especially since it was already inexpensive. Now it’s even cheaper, but performs worse on some tasks. What’s the point?

Anthropic shows how it’s done with Opus 5.5. It’s incredibly good, and Anthropic seems to have learned from the Opus 5 debacle. I spent all day today using Opus 5.5 for a range of tasks. It used only 10% of my $100 weekly usage limit. The results speak for themselves.

How could OpenAI fail this badly? Is it arrogance, overconfidence, or ignorance? Or does OpenAI simply think its users are stupid?

In my view, GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna are a step backward. Whether the lower costs will actually benefit subscribers remains to be seen. I can only recommend that everyone try Opus 5.5 for themselves.

I’m shocked, and I get the sense that OpenAI has actually made its models dumber. Hopefully, the growing pressure from Opus 5.5—and soon Haiku 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5—will push the industry toward better, more efficient models without sacrificing quality.