An investigation across roughly 50 accounts says Codex silently serves some gpt-6-astra requests from a weaker model

r/OpenAI (86 upvotes) / is-my-astra-real·medium signalXBlueskyLinkedInCopy link

An r/OpenAI poster built is-my-astra-real.pages.dev. The data shows that from about 09:00 UTC on September 20, more than half of the accounts tested got cruder output, around 25% less output per response and faster token streams, even though the server still reported gpt-6-astra (Fisher p = 2e-12). The effect follows the ChatGPT account, not the prompt or client version. The authors think the stand-in is most likely gpt-5.6-luna but say they can't prove it. A check script is included, so builders can test their own accounts.