OpenAI’s GPT-5 Rollout Is Going Horribly
On Thursday, OpenAI officially unveiled GPT-5 to the world . The much-hyped presentation included few concrete benchmarks comparing GPT-5 to previous models, but OpenAI staff were adamant: it is the best, most informative, and most powerful model to date.
GPT-5 has its haters
But many users who have tested GPT-5 in the last 24 hours disagree. You only need to visit r/ChatGPT to see the scale of the situation: the front page is filled with posts complaining about the current state of the model, including: “ GPT-5 is the biggest [piece of] garbage, even for a paid user ,” “ OpenAI just pulled off the biggest hoax in AI history and I’m done, ” and “ ChatGPT-5’s rollout is a complete disaster .”
One of the most high-profile complaints concerns OpenAI’s decision to stop supporting older models, which the company announced without ceremony during the GPT-5 launch. GPT-4o, o3, 4.5, and other models are no longer available for use. Going forward, users will only have access to GPT-5 and subsequent models (such as GPT-5 mini). Many users are upset that OpenAI has suddenly stopped supporting older models without warning, especially since they feel the new version does not provide the same level of quality. Some have even canceled their subscriptions .
I know people use ChatGPT for therapy, and I know people have deep attachments to the technology, but I admit I was a little 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 used 4o for creative ideas, o3 for logical tasks, o3-Pro for deep research, and 4.5 for writing-related tasks. Another user talked about how they used 4o to combat anxiety and depression because they felt the model felt “human.” They believe people are mourning the loss of 4o, which matches at least some of the other posts about 4o . There are people who really like these models and are upset about their removal.
But beyond the grief, some users just think GPT-5 is not very good. If you ask the model how many times the letter “b” appears in the word “blueberry,” it will reportedly answer “three” : once at the beginning, once in the word “blue,” and once in the word “berry.” This isn’t necessarily a new problem — LLM had trouble spelling “strawberry,” too — but it’s not a great image for OpenAI’s “best” model ever. One user X gave an example of GPT-5’s inability to solve a “simple linear equation” compared to Google’s Gemini 2.5’s ability to solve it without issue, while another user posted a map of the U.S. generated by GPT-5, with most states labeled with nonsense.
Some users have teased OpenAI about the vague benchmarking data . Reece at X sarcastically wrote, “These gpt-5 numbers are insane,” and attached a chart that plots each version of GPT by number (GPT-1 is at “1” on the Y axis, GPT-2 is at “2,” and so on until GPT-5 reaches “5”).
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Automatic switching, one of GPT-5’s core features, has also come under fire. Users of the free and Plus versions of ChatGPT can’t choose a specific model, but OpenAI says that’s a good thing. GPT-5 is supposed to be smart enough to choose the right model based on your query: weaker models are used for simple questions, and the most powerful ones are used for more complex queries. But if OpenAI is so confident in this, why does it still offer the option to manually switch models if you pay $200 a month for the Pro plan ?
Of course, not everyone agrees that GPT-5 is bad. There are users who seem to like the model, who like the terse answers and the high speed . But most of the discussions I see on social media and forums are neutral or negative. Even posts that seem positive at first glance end up criticizing the model:
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4o lives for now
Since this article began, OpenAI has responded to the backlash. CEO Sam Altman has posted a series of updates to X that seem to backtrack slightly on the decisions that users have criticized most: rate limits for ChatGPT Plus users will double for now; GPT-5 should get smarter starting today; it will be easy to see which model is answering a given query; and manual selection of a thinking model will be easier. Altman also acknowledged that initial rollouts have been slower than expected, which is understandable since I still don’t have access to the new model.
But the biggest announcement of all 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 continue to use 4o for now. Altman says the company is monitoring usage and will make a decision on how long to offer the legacy version in the future.
It will be interesting to see how users will react in the future: will those who cancelled their subscription renew it to continue using 4o? On the other hand, why bother if OpenAI plans to abandon this model again in the future? One thing is for sure: OpenAI probably didn’t expect this to happen when it introduced GPT-5.
Disclosure: Lifehacker’s parent company, Ziff Davis, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April, alleging that it infringed Ziff Davis’ copyrights in the training and operation of its AI systems.