Ok, this may seem foolish later, but whatever, here is my conspiracy theory.
I don't think OpenAI *had* to release GPT-5.6 only to trusted government partners. They said they did so "at the government's request", but what they actually did is ask them "is it ok if we release this only to you first?", the government said "sure, please do", and then OpenAI framed this as the government requesting it from them.
They did this because OpenAI always tries to make themselves the center of any story about AI. They are trying to give the impression that GPT-5.6 is as capable as Mythos & Fable, and that they will thus be subject to the same regulations, and trying to make themselves part of the much bigger story about Anthropic.
My theory is that they could have released GPT-5.6 in the normal way, and they chose not to, because that would confirm in the public's eye that GPT-5.6 is not on the frontier.
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Then it wouldn't just be misleading phrasing, it would mean Sam directly lied to his staff and to news agencies, and no one from the USG bothered to correct it. Which isn't properly explained by this theory
I think something like that is likely. Imagine the aura loss if they didn't have to do the same thing.
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I guess we’ll see when 5.6 is released or at least a broader set of benchmarks are shown. If it is at or near mythos level generally then I’m sure they would have loved, and probably fought hard, to release it as soon as possible
They also avoid the ire of being the trump admin’s darling in the public eye
Surely they would have released Terra and Lune to the public and told us the government wouldnt let us have Sol?
As the most derivative "uss too" company since Microsoft, I think you are probably exactly right.
if they release it and provoke an official ban, it will be way harder/take longer to get it out to everyone (Trump seems rather vindictive to me, also there would be higher political cost to retreat), if they do what USG wants, it might go easier.
