OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Saturday promised that the company will work on making GPT-5 “warmer” in conversations after users complained about the lack of wit, creativity, and relatability with the new AI model. Altman also noted that his team had underestimated how much some of the things that users liked about GPT-4o mattered, even if the new model does better in many ways.
Soon after the GPT-5 launch, OpenAI announced that it was pulling the plug on all its older models, including GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.5, GPT-4.1-mini, o4-mini, o4-mini-high, o3, and o3-pro. As GPT-5 started rolling out to users, they were stripped of the option to chat with the older versions of the chatbot, leading to a widespread uproar.
OpenAI ultimately relented and allowed users to interact with GPT-4o, but only if they have a ChatGPT Plus subscription, while free users continue to be limited to GPT-5.
During its launch blog, OpenAI claimed that GPT-5 is faster and more accurate than all its earlier models while having lower hallucination chances (making stuff up) and fewer cases of sycophancy (being too agreeable). The AI startup also claimed significant advances across a variety of tasks, including coding, reasoning, writing, health-related questions, and multi-modal abilities.
However, social media reactions suggest that GPT-5 could sometimes be slower than the previous models while also providing shorter replies that show shallow emotional depth.
Sam Altman on changes coming to GPT-5:
After the backlash on social media, Altman took to X to share the changes that will be coming to GPT-5 in the coming days and weeks.
“We for sure underestimated how much some of the things that people like in GPT-4o matter to them, even if GPT-5 performs better in most ways.” Altman wrote.
“We are going to focus on finishing the GPT-5 rollout and getting things stable and then we are going to focus on some changes to GPT-5 to make it warmer. Really good per-users customization will take longer.” he added
Altman noted that users have very different opinions on the strengths of GPT-4o compared to GPT-5, and OpenAI will work on providing users with ways to customize different things in the long term. For instance, Altman said some users like emojis in the responses they get from ChatGPT, while others want ‘cold logic,’ and some want warmth and a different kind of emotional intelligence.
