OpenAI bans accounts citing 'distilling', sparking backlash and local-model calls

On September 5, well-known developer QuixiAI (author of Knowns/roborant) reported that his OpenAI account had been banned again, this time for "Distilling", on his birthday and with no prior notice. The next day he joked in response: "I confess, I was distilling — but from Chinese models, not from OpenAI", quipping that OpenAI "banned the wrong person" and that he only wanted to try the new Astra model.

Confirmed

• QuixiAI's OpenAI account was banned citing "distilling"; this was the second ban for the account.
• He denies distilling anything or training any competing model, says he is not an OpenAI competitor, and is baffled by the reason. He tagged Pliny and sama in complaints; commenters offered birthday wishes.
• He coined the slogan "Not your weights, not your AI" and urged people to move to local models.
• The ban had real costs: QuixiAI said he had linked ChatGPT to his medical records to track his heart medication list, which became inaccessible after the ban.
• User @aakashbuildsAI reported the same unannounced ban for "distilling"; QuixiAI replied he suffered the same, showing this is not an isolated case. aakashbuildsAI noted that users can lose extensive accumulated context and work with zero warning.
• Sharers like SamWitteveen criticized OpenAI's positioning contradiction: aspiring to be a public utility while banning users arbitrarily.

Unconfirmed

• The specific evidence and detection mechanism OpenAI used to判定 "distilling" were never explained to the affected users, so whether these are false positives cannot be verified.

Why it matters

• The incident reignited debate over the risk of unilateral bans by commercial closed-source API services, where platforms can terminate access on internally judged violations with no appeal channel.
• The case of a heart-medication list locked behind a banned account shows the real safety risks of entrusting critical personal data to a single cloud service.
• Commenters noted GPU owners saw this coming — "don't rely on commercial AI" is already consensus — and the event may further push adoption of local deployment and open-source models.

2026-09-05 ~ 2026-09-06 · 11 related posts

• [source] OpenAI Bans User's Account for "Distilling" — He Says He's Not Training Anything, Urges Going Local — QuixiAI · 2026-09-05
• Dev Says OpenAI Banned His Account Again, Citing 'Distilling' He Denies Doing — QuixiAI · 2026-09-05
• Developer banned by OpenAI on his birthday for 'distilling' he denies doing — QuixiAI · 2026-09-05
• OpenAI account banned for 'distilling' as users warn chats and data vanish without warning — aakashbuildsAI · 2026-09-05
• [source] Dev jokes he distills from Chinese models, not OpenAI: 'You banned the wrong guy' — QuixiAI · 2026-09-06
• OpenAI accused of banning innocent users while acting like a utility — Sam_Witteveen · 2026-09-06
• [source] User locked out of heart medication list after ChatGPT account ban — QuixiAI · 2026-09-06

4 near-duplicate retellings: QuixiAI · QuixiAI · QuixiAI · arthurcolle