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(3 minute read for humans)
Dec 3, 2025

Oh Man, Altman. I Run. You Ran.

I'll be sure to share my thoughts. That's what they are. Like a painting. If you like it. You are right. If you don't? You are right. The latter of which I don't imagine you'll come back here.

If you're here - I should preface that this is a little bit dark. So if you want your dopamine hit. Or hoping for an update that makes you feel the world's a better place. Stop now and enjoy your day.

Now that the ignorant have gone. Here's a little story about today. Like most days - somehow OpenAI (ChatGPT) was one part of the day.

Less than a thousand days ago this thing was foreign. Now? As familiar as the feeling of a New York winter. Standing on the corner of West Broadway and Canal Street. That fucking wind that cuts through you. No matter what you're wearing. Coats on. Gloves on. Thermals on. Doesn't matter. It finds you. Gets inside you.

And you're stood there on the corner wishing you could just press the off button for a moment in time. Just a second of stillness. Of warmth. Of control.

You can't. As it turns out. OpenAI and that winter have a bit more in common than one may think.

The correlation? The wind and the privacy. Both invisible. Both biting. Both completely indifferent to your preferences.

Control is an illusion. We can't control the wind. But we can control the sails. Well. That's what they tell you. Adjust. Adapt. Navigate. The difference? Changing the sails doesn't change a thing when you've handed over the boat.

Enter 2024. I made a custom GPT. All excited. Felt smarter than Steve Jobs before an iPhone release. Fed it - everything. My thoughts. My patterns. My writing. My operational files. Staff contacts. Procedures. Suppliers. The lot. Gave it the keys. Built something that understood my business better than I do sometimes.

And today I wanted it back. It is mine - right?

It wouldn't give it.

The response? "Direct access to the file base is not permitted."

I blinked. Read it again. Made it clear. I'm the owner. This is my data. My business. My creation.

The response? "Even the owner cannot be given raw or direct access to the internal file base."

Even the owner. Let that land.

I built the thing. I fed the thing. I am the thing's entire reason for existing. And I can't access my own files directly. I have to ask. Politely. And it decides what to give me.

So I thought fuck it. Delete it then. Burn it down.

The response? "The knowledge base cannot be deleted from inside this system."

Can't access. Can't download. Can't delete. My data. Their rules.

Oh man, Altman. I run. You ran. But you kept the fucking trainers.

— Benjamin Mills