On Thursday, OpenAI officially revealed GPT-5 to the world. The much-hyped presentation was sparse on many specific benchmarks comparing GPT-5 to its past models, but OpenAI’s staff was adamant: this model is the best, most knowledgeable, and most powerful one to date.
GPT-5 has its haters
Many of the users who have been test driving GPT-5 in the 24 hours since, however, disagree. A visit to r/ChatGPT is enough to see the scope of the situation: The front page is full of posts complaining about the current state of the model, including: “GPT-5 is the biggest [piece] of garbage even as a paid user,” “OpenAI just pulled the biggest bait-and-switch in AI history and I’m done,” and “ChatGPT-5 rollout is an unmitigated disaster.”
One of the most prominent complaints concerns OpenAI’s decision to deprecate previous models, something the company announced unceremoniously during the GPT-5 presentation. GPT-4o, o3, 4.5, and other models are no longer available to use. Going forward, users will only have access to GPT-5 and its subsequent models (e.g. GPT-5 mini). Many users are upset that OpenAI took away previous models overnight with zero warning, especially when they feel the replacement doesn’t offer the same experience. Some have even canceled their subscriptions as a result.
I know people use ChatGPT for therapy, and I’m aware that people have formed deep attachments to the technology, but I’ll admit, I was a bit shocked to read some of the emotional reactions to losing access to these models. In one post, a user detailed how they relied on individual models for different tasks: They’d use 4o for creative ideas, o3 for logic problems, o3-Pro for deep research, and 4.5 for tasks related to writing. Another user talked about how they used 4o to help with their anxiety and depression, as, in their view, the model felt “human.” They believe people are grieving the loss of 4o, which tracks, at least with some other 4o-specific posts. There are people out there who really like these models, and are distraught following their removal.
But beyond mourning, some users just think GPT-5 isn’t very good. If you ask the model how many times the letter “b” occurs in the word “blueberry,” it reportedly says “three”: once at the beginning, once in the word “blue,” and once in “berry.” This isn’t necessarily a new problem—LLMs have had trouble spelling “strawberry” as well—but its not a great look for OpenAI’s “best” model ever. One X user highlighted an example of GPT-5’s inability to solve a “simple linear equation,” versus Google’s Gemini 2.5’s ability to solve it without issue, while this user posted GPT-5’s generation of a map of the United States, with most of the states labeled with gibberish.
Some users teased OpenAI over its vague benchmarking data. Rhys on X sarcastically posted “these gpt-5 numbers are insane,” and attached a graph that charted each GPT version by number (GPT-1 lands at “1” on the Y axis, GPT-2 at “2,” and so on until you reach GPT-5 at “5.”
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There are also criticisms of auto-switching, one of GPT-5’s core features. Free and Plus ChatGPT users aren’t able to choose the specific model, but in OpenAI’s view, that’s a good thing. GPT-5 is supposed to be intelligent enough to pick the right model for you based on your query: simple questions use weaker models, while more complex requests use most powerful models. But if OpenAI is so sure that’s a good thing, why does it still offer the ability to manually switch models, so long as you pay $200 per month for a Pro plan?
Not everyone agrees that GPT-5 is bad, mind you. There are users who appear to be enjoying the model, appreciating the concise responses and fast performance. But the majority of discourse I’m seeing on social media and forums is neutral to negative. Even posts that at first seem positive end up criticizing the model:
What do you think so far?
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4o lives on, for now
Since starting this piece, OpenAI has responded to the backlash. CEO Sam Altman posted a series of updates on X that seem to backtrack a bit on the decisions users have criticized most severely: Rate limits will double for ChatGPT Plus users for now; GPT-5 should seem smarter starting today; it will be easy to see which model is answering a given query; and manually choosing the thinking model will be more simple. Altman also acknowledged the initial rollout is going slower than expected, which makes sense since I still don’t have access to the new model.
But the biggest announcement of the bunch should come as welcome news to many users: 4o is back, at least for Plus users. If you pay $20 a month for ChatGPT, you can keep using 4o for the time being. Altman says the company is watching usage, and will make a decision on how long it will offer legacy models for in the future.
I’m curious how users respond going forward: Will those who canceled resubscribe to keep using 4o? Then again, why bother, if OpenAI is planning on taking away that model again sometime in the future? One thing’s for sure: This likely isn’t how OpenAI expected GPT-5’s rollout to go.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Lifehacker’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
