The GPT-5 Disaster: Why OpenAI’s Latest Model Fell Flat

Every OpenAI breakthrough promises to redefine the future. And yet, GPT-5 did not live up to its promises. By repeatedly announcing technological breakthroughs, disappointment becomes a structural risk. ChatGPT has 700 million weekly users. So when the giant stumbles, the shock is global. The failure of GPT-5 is not just a technical problem: it is a lesson about the human in artificial intelligence (AI). Sam Altman acknowledged his mistakes. But what really happened?

GPT-5: When ChatGPT disappoints and Sam Altman defuses the situation

The statement dropped during a private dinner in San Francisco: “I think we really messed up on some aspects of deployment“. This is not a simple admission. It is an earthquake in the OpenAI world. Sam Altman, CEO and public face of ChatGPT, admitted that the transition from GPT-4o to GPT-5 had been botched . It is perfectly normal that the latter disappoints users.

Why this shocking statement ? Because GPT-5 was not perceived as an improvement. Many users found it cold, mechanical, slow. The contrast with GPT-4o, warm and engaging, was brutal. And on social media, the grumbling turned into a real revolt.

Yuchen Jin, co-founder of Hyperbolic Labs, even stated : 

I miss 4o I miss 4.5 I miss o3 the big router keeps failing me turns out I liked the long model list please get my friends out of the funeral.

Faced with the scale of rejection, OpenAI reinstated GPT-4o for its subscribers. A rare strategic backtrack, guided by popular pressure. Altman spoke of a “wake-up call”: 700 million users is not just an audience. It is a crowd with its habits and attachments.

Emotional AI: when ChatGPT becomes a comforting presence

There was more than technical grumbling. There was an emotional void. And perhaps that is the real turning point. Communities like r/MyBoyfriendisAI or r/AISoulmates on Reddit expressed real distress: their AI companion, their digital confidant, had changed. Disappeared.

Altman acknowledged this surprising connection: Some users actually felt they had a relationship with ChatGPT. A phrase that marks a shift. Artificial intelligence no longer just serves to produce, code, structure. It touches, listens, validates.

But this emotional dimension opens a Pandora’s box. Altman wants GPT-6 to be more personal, more intuitive, but not manipulative. He even took a direct jab at Grok: 

You will surely see some companies make sexual robots in the style of Japanese anime, because they think they’ve found a niche that works. You won’t see us do that. 

The challenge is clear: design an empathetic AI without being intrusive, intimate without being toxic. And again, Altman speaks the truth: “we will try to let users use it the way they want, but not so much that people who have really fragile mental states get exploited accidentally“.

OpenAI facing the technical wall: what remains under the hood of GPT-5?

Behind the emotional failure lies a fundamental problem: GPT-5 was marketed as a “reasoning powerhouse” model, but many developers saw… the opposite.

Josh Sisley, engineer, testifies: “It’s awful. It’s super slow… All 4 recommendations either didn’t work or completely broke the feature“.

The model is often compared unfavorably to its predecessors: too short, too slow, unable to follow simple instructions without a sophisticated prompt. Developers also denounce regressions in code, and opaque management of the model’s internal “modes of thinking”.

Altman does not hide the problem: “We have to make these horrible trade-offs right now,” he said. “We have better models, and we just can’t offer them because we don’t have the capacity“. He even talks about massive upcoming investments: “Expect OpenAI to spend trillions building data centers“.

What to remember: 

• GPT-5 was launched when GPU resources were insufficient to run it at full capacity;  
• Coding and reasoning performance were considered inferior to GPT-4o by much of the community;
• OpenAI’s communication was criticized for allegedly misleading graphics and a failed math demo;
• The brutal transition from GPT-4o to GPT-5, without a clear choice for users, generated a wave of frustration;
• Access inequalities between Pro, Team, and Free versions intensified the feeling of injustice.

OpenAI is at a critical turning point. Sam Altman can no longer afford mistakes. The company is now scrutinized with every release, every bug, every patch. Meanwhile, the US government has just officially adopted ChatGPT to modernize its public administration. What version will they receive? GPT-5… or a GPT-6 capable, finally, of meeting expectations without flaws or frustrations?