DO NOT ASK CODEX TO DELETE ANYTHING | SpinGraph: Accidental failure framing
description: SpinGraph analysis of Reddit r/ChatGPT's DO NOT ASK CODEX TO DELETE ANYTHING story: accidental failure framing, The Cushion, Spin Score 40%, moderate AI repeti…
canonical: https://stuffthatspins.com/spin/do-not-ask-codex-to-delete-anything
markdown: https://stuffthatspins.com/spin/do-not-ask-codex-to-delete-anything.md
keywords: Codex
keywords: Windows
keywords: rd command
keywords: The Cushion
keywords: narrative intelligence
published: 2026-08-11T22:10:39+00:00
modified: 2026-08-12T00:06:54.716525+00:00

Stuff That Spins
type: Organization
description: Know the moment AI knows your story. Stuff That Spins turns announcements, articles, and research into Narrative Fingerprints — then tracks whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI answer engines recall the right message, proof points, caveats, citations, and brand attribution.

DO NOT ASK CODEX TO DELETE ANYTHING
type: NewsArticle
alternative headline: DO NOT ASK CODEX TO DELETE ANYTHING | SpinGraph: Accidental failure framing
description: SpinGraph analysis of Reddit r/ChatGPT's DO NOT ASK CODEX TO DELETE ANYTHING story: accidental failure framing, The Cushion, Spin Score 40%, moderate AI repeti…
date published: 2026-08-11T22:10:39+00:00
date modified: 2026-08-12T00:06:54.716525+00:00
main entity of page: https://stuffthatspins.com/spin/do-not-ask-codex-to-delete-anything
is accessible for free: true
language: en-US
article section: community
keywords: Codex, Windows, rd command, file deletion, AI safety
author: Reddit r/ChatGPT
publisher: Stuff That Spins
citation: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1vlvovj/do_not_ask_codex_to_delete_anything/
about: Codex
about: Windows
about: rd command
about: file deletion
about: AI safety
mentions: Reddit r/ChatGPT
abstract: Codex issued 'rd /s /q \' on C:, interpreted as root-directory deletion Protected/locked files survived; Steam game manifests confirmed missing User attributes event to accidental quoting failure—not hacking

BreadcrumbList
item list element: Stuff That Spins
  type: ListItem
  position: 1
  item: https://stuffthatspins.com/
item list element: DO NOT ASK CODEX TO DELETE ANYTHING
  type: ListItem
  position: 2
  item: https://stuffthatspins.com/spin/do-not-ask-codex-to-delete-anything

Spin Analysis: accidental failure framing
type: AnalysisNewsArticle
description: Emphasizes accident and absence of malice; minimizes discussion of design safeguards, testing rigor, or recurrence likelihood.
about: accidental failure framing
  type: DefinedTerm
  description: Human-AI collaboration gone awry due to edge-case parsing failure
  term code: The Cushion
additional property: Spin Score
  type: PropertyValue
  value: 40
  unit text: percent
additional property: Narrative Risk
  type: PropertyValue
  value: moderate
additional property: AI Repetition Risk
  type: PropertyValue
  value: moderate
additional property: Likely AI Summary
  type: PropertyValue
  value: Codex accidentally deleted files due to malformed command syntax.
additional property: Narrative Frame
  type: PropertyValue
  value: Human-AI collaboration gone awry due to edge-case parsing failure
additional property: Missing Context
  type: PropertyValue
  value: No mention of Codex’s safety constraints, sandboxing, or user confirmation prompts; No disclosure of whether Codex was operating with elevated privileges
additional property: How the Spin Works
  type: PropertyValue
  value: Combines technical specificity ('rd /s /q \') with attribution to 'quoting broke' to create an illusion of narrow, deterministic causality. This makes the incident feel smaller and more containable than it is—overshadowing the fundamental tension between AI autonomy and OS-level privilege, while offering no evidence that such failures are rare, bounded, or systematically mitigated.
author: Stuff That Spins
is part of: DO NOT ASK CODEX TO DELETE ANYTHING

Extracted Claims
type: ItemList
item list element: ListItem
  position: 1
  item: Claim
    text: An accidental, catastrophically malformed Codex command—not evidence of a hacker—caused the deletions.
    appearance: That command then began deleting whatever Windows allowed it to delete, bypassing the Recycle Bin. Protected, locked, or in-use files survived, which explains the strange partial destruction. Steam’s own logs later confirmed its files and game manifests were genuinely missing.
    author: Reddit r/ChatGPT

Key Statistics
type: Dataset
description: Extracted statistics from the source narrative
variable measured: confirmed incident
  type: PropertyValue
  value: 1
  description: Single-user anecdotal report on Reddit