On Thursday, OpenAI formally revealed GPT-5 to the world. The much-hyped presentation was sparse on many particular benchmarks evaluating GPT-5 to its previous fashions, however OpenAI’s workers was adamant: this mannequin is the most effective, most educated, and strongest one thus far.
GPT-5 has its haters
Most of the customers who’ve been check driving GPT-5 within the 24 hours since, nevertheless, disagree. A go to to r/ChatGPT is sufficient to see the scope of the scenario: The entrance web page is filled with posts complaining concerning the present state of the mannequin, together with: “GPT-5 is the most important [piece] of rubbish at the same time as a paid person,” “OpenAI simply pulled the most important bait-and-switch in AI historical past and I am completed,” and “ChatGPT-5 rollout is an unmitigated catastrophe.”
Some of the outstanding complaints issues OpenAI’s resolution to deprecate earlier fashions, one thing the corporate introduced unceremoniously throughout the GPT-5 presentation. GPT-4o, o3, 4.5, and different fashions are now not obtainable to make use of. Going ahead, customers will solely have entry to GPT-5 and its subsequent fashions (e.g. GPT-5 mini). Many customers are upset that OpenAI took away earlier fashions in a single day with zero warning, particularly after they really feel the alternative would not supply the identical expertise. Some have even canceled their subscriptions because of this.
I do know individuals use ChatGPT for remedy, and I am conscious that folks have shaped deep attachments to the expertise, however I am going to admit, I used to be a bit shocked to learn a few of the emotional reactions to dropping entry to those fashions. In a single put up, a person detailed how they relied on particular person fashions for various duties: They’d use 4o for inventive concepts, o3 for logic issues, o3-Professional for deep analysis, and 4.5 for duties associated to writing. One other person talked about how they used 4o to assist with their anxiousness and despair, as, of their view, the mannequin felt “human.” They consider persons are grieving the lack of 4o, which tracks, at the least with another 4o-specific posts. There are individuals on the market who actually like these fashions, and are distraught following their removing.
However past mourning, some customers simply suppose GPT-5 is not superb. In case you ask the mannequin what number of occasions the letter “b” happens within the phrase “blueberry,” it reportedly says “three”: as soon as in the beginning, as soon as within the phrase “blue,” and as soon as in “berry.” This is not essentially a brand new drawback—LLMs have had bother spelling “strawberry” as nicely—however its not an important search for OpenAI’s “finest” mannequin ever. One X person highlighted an instance of GPT-5’s incapacity to unravel a “easy linear equation,” versus Google’s Gemini 2.5’s skill to unravel it with out situation, whereas this person posted GPT-5’s era of a map of the USA, with many of the states labeled with gibberish.
Some customers teased OpenAI over its obscure benchmarking knowledge. Rhys on X sarcastically posted “these gpt-5 numbers are insane,” and hooked up a graph that charted every GPT model by quantity (GPT-1 lands at “1” on the Y axis, GPT-2 at “2,” and so forth till you attain GPT-5 at “5.”
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There are additionally criticisms of auto-switching, considered one of GPT-5’s core options. Free and Plus ChatGPT customers aren’t in a position to decide on the precise mannequin, however in OpenAI’s view, that is an excellent factor. GPT-5 is meant to be clever sufficient to choose the appropriate mannequin for you based mostly in your question: easy questions use weaker fashions, whereas extra advanced requests use strongest fashions. But when OpenAI is so positive that is an excellent factor, why does it nonetheless supply the power to manually change fashions, as long as you pay $200 per 30 days for a Professional plan?
Not everybody agrees that GPT-5 is unhealthy, thoughts you. There are customers who seem like having fun with the mannequin, appreciating the concise responses and quick efficiency. However the majority of discourse I am seeing on social media and boards is impartial to adverse. Even posts that at the beginning appear constructive find yourself criticizing the mannequin:
What do you suppose to date?
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4o lives on, for now
Since beginning this piece, OpenAI has responded to the backlash. CEO Sam Altman posted a sequence of updates on X that appear to backtrack a bit on the choices customers have criticized most severely: Fee limits will double for ChatGPT Plus customers for now; GPT-5 ought to appear smarter beginning at the moment; will probably be simple to see which mannequin is answering a given question; and manually selecting the considering mannequin might be extra easy. Altman additionally acknowledged the preliminary rollout goes slower than anticipated, which is smart since I nonetheless do not have entry to the brand new mannequin.
However the greatest announcement of the bunch ought to come as welcome information to many customers: 4o is again, at the least for Plus customers. In case you pay $20 a month for ChatGPT, you possibly can preserve utilizing 4o in the interim. Altman says the corporate is watching utilization, and can decide on how lengthy it should supply legacy fashions for sooner or later.
I am curious how customers reply going ahead: Will those that canceled resubscribe to maintain utilizing 4o? Then once more, why trouble, if OpenAI is planning on taking away that mannequin once more someday sooner or later? One factor’s for positive: This possible is not how OpenAI anticipated GPT-5’s rollout to go.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Lifehacker’s guardian firm, in April filed a lawsuit in opposition to OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in coaching and working its AI programs.
