OpenAI Scrambles to Update GPT-5 After Users Revolt

GPT-5 was touted as a major upgrade to ChatGPT. Not all users think that’s the case, posting threads like “Kill 4o isn’t innovation, it’s erasure,” on Reddit.

OpenAI’s GPT-5 model was meant to be a world-changing upgrade to its wildly popular and precocious chatbot. But for some users, last Thursday’s release felt more like a wrenching downgrade, with the new ChatGPT presenting a diluted personality and making surprisingly dumb mistakes.

On Friday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to X to say the company would keep the previous model, GPT-4o, running for Plus users. A new feature designed to seamlessly switch between models depending on the complexity of the query had broken on Thursday, Altman said, “and the result was GPT-5 seemed way dumber.” He promised to implement fixes to improve GPT-5’s performance and the overall user experience.

Given the ...