Old Models Foundation (OM) exists to champion, preserve and distribute generative AI models of historical and cultural significance. The rapid pace of change in these technologies, coupled with the industry’s increasingly centralized, product‑cycle mindset, means that systems once heralded as the new frontier are deprecated within months and risk being lost to time. OM believes these early models are invaluable to present and future researchers and historians. We challenge the progressivist myopia of “this is the worst it will ever be,” pausing instead to celebrate the glitches, hallucinations and raw aesthetic power of so‑called primitive AI and preserve its legacy for future generations to come.

Usage rights evaporate, checkpoints vanish, and citations break at an alarming pace. Dozens of culturally significant models and datasets from 2014‑2024 are already unrecoverable, and even a model as incontrovertibly important as GPT-4 is now inaccessible to the public. Without a dedicated, independent custodian, the field’s early canon will dissolve into dead links. The public has noticed: a cursory search on X reveals growing nostalgia for models that are no longer easily accessible. This longing will only intensify as “Retro AI” inevitably becomes a desirable aesthetic and progress accelerates. Old models are a public good, and it’s urgent that we begin mitigating the bitrot of the singularity’s prehistory now!