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<\/p>\n Email Link<\/p>\n \n A version of this story appeared in CNN Business\u2019 Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n New York \n Sam Altman, the artificial intelligence hype master, is in damage-control mode.\n <\/p>\n \n OpenAI\u2019s latest version of its vaunted ChatGPT bot was supposed to be \u201cPhD-level\u201d smart. It was supposed to be the next great leap forward for a company that investors have poured billions of dollars into.\n <\/p>\n \n Instead, ChatGPT got a flatter, more terse personality that can\u2019t reliably answer basic questions. The resulting public mockery has forced the company to make sweaty apologies while standing by its highfalutin claims about the bot\u2019s capabilities.\n <\/p>\n \n In short: It\u2019s a dud.\n <\/p>\n \n The misstep on the model, called GPT-5, is notable for a couple of reasons.\n <\/p>\n \n 1. It highlighted the many existing shortcomings of generative AI that critics were quick to seize on (more on that in a moment, because they were quite funny).\n <\/p>\n \n \n Let\u2019s rewind a bit to last Thursday, when OpenAI finally released GPT-5 to the world \u2014 about a year behind schedule, according to the Wall Street Journal.<\/a> Now, one thing this industry is really good at is hype, and on that metric, CEO Sam Altman delivered.\n <\/p>\n \n During a livestream ahead of the launch last Thursday, Altman said talking to GPT-5 would be like talking to \u201ca legitimate PhD-level expert in anything, any area you need.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In his typically lofty style, Altman said GPT-5 reminds him of \u201cwhen the iPhone went from those giant-pixel old ones to the retina display.\u201d The new model, he said, is \u201csignificantly better in obvious ways and subtle ways, and it feels like something I don\u2019t want to ever have to go back from,\u201d Altman said in a press briefing.\n <\/p>\n \n Then people started actually using it.\n <\/p>\n \n Users had a field day testing GPT-5 and mocking its wildly incorrect answers.\n <\/p>\n \n The journalist Tim Burke said on Bluesky<\/a> that he prompted GPT-5 to \u201cshow me a diagram of the first 12 presidents of the United States with an image of their face and their name under the image.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The bot returned an image of nine people instead, with rather creative spellings of America\u2019s early leaders, like \u201cGearge Washingion\u201d and \u201cWilliam Henry Harrtson.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n A similar prompt for the last 12 presidents returned an image that included two separate versions of George W. Bush. No, not George H.W. Bush, and then Dubya. It had \u201cGeorge H. Bush.\u201d And then his son, twice. Except the second time, George Jr. looked like just some random guy.\n <\/p>\n At first I thought GPT 5 had got this right then I saw things like “Tonnessee,” “Mississipo” and my personal favourite “West Wigina.” Please do not respond just saying the different typos to me we can all read the joke, we all know about “Distrricke”<\/p>\n [image or embed]<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com<\/a>) August 7, 2025 at 10:42 PM<\/a><\/p>\n \n Labeling basic maps of the United States also proved tricky for GPT-5 (but again, pretty funny, as tech writer Ed Zitron\u2019s post on Bluesky<\/a> showed).\n <\/p>\n \n GPT-5 did slightly better when I asked it on Wednesday for a map of the US. Some people can, in fact, label the great state of Vermont correctly without a PhD, but not GPT-5. And this is the first I\u2019m hearing of states named \u201cYirginia.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The slop coming out of GPT-5 was funny when it was just us nerds trying to find its blind spots. But some regular fans of ChatGPT weren\u2019t laughing. Especially because users have been particularly alarmed by the new version\u2019s personality \u2013 or rather, lack thereof.\n <\/p>\n \n In rolling out the new model, OpenAI essentially retired its earlier models, including the wildly popular GPT-4o that\u2019s been on the market for over a year, making it so that even people who loved the previous iteration of the chatbot suddenly couldn\u2019t use it. More than 4,000 people signed a Change.org petition<\/a> to compel OpenAI to resurrect it.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019m so done with ChatGPT 5,\u201d one user wrote on Reddit<\/a>, explaining how they tried to use the new model to run \u201ca simple system\u201d of tasks that an earlier ChatGPT model used to handle. The user said GPT-5 \u201cwent rogue,\u201d deleting tasks and moving deadlines.\n <\/p>\n \n And while OpenAI\u2019s defenders could chalk that up to an isolated or even made-up incident, within 24 hours of the GPT-5 launch Altman was doing damage control, seemingly caught of guard by the bad reception. On X<\/a>, he announced a laundry list of updates, including the return of GPT-4o for paid subscribers.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe expected some bumpiness as we roll out so many things at once,\u201d Altman said in a post. \u201cBut it was a little more bumpy than we hoped for!\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The CEO\u2019s failure to anticipate the outrage suggests he doesn\u2019t have a firm grasp on how an estimated 700 million weekly active users are engaging with his product.\n <\/p>\n \n Perhaps Altman missed all the coverage \u2014 from CNN<\/a>, the New York Times<\/a>, the Wall Street Journal<\/a> \u2014 of people forming deep emotional attachments to ChatGPT or rival chatbots, having endless conversations with them as if they were real people. A simple search of Reddit could have offered insights into how others are integrating the tool into their workflows and lives. Basic market research should have shown OpenAI that a mass update sunsetting the tools people rely on would be more than just a bit bumpy.\n <\/p>\n \n When asked about the backlash to GPT-5, an OpenAI representative pointed CNN to Altman\u2019s public statements on social media<\/a> announcing the return of older models, as well as a blog post<\/a> about how the company is optimizing GPT-5.\n <\/p>\n \n The messy rollout speaks to how the AI industry as a whole is struggling to prove themselves as producers of consumer goods rather than \u201clabs\u201d \u2014 as they love to call themselves, because it sounds more scientific and distracts people from the fact that they are backed by people who are trying to make unfathomable amounts of cash for themselves.\n <\/p>\n \n AI companies often base their fanfare around how a model performs in various behind-the-scenes benchmark tests that show how well a bot can do complex math. For all we know, GPT-5 sailed through those evaluations.\n <\/p>\n \n But the problem is that OpenAI hyped the thing so far into the stratosphere, disappointment was (or should have been) inevitable.\n <\/p>\n
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2. It raised serious doubts about OpenAI\u2019s ability to build and market consumer products that human beings are willing to pay for. That should be particularly concerning for investors, given OpenAI, which has never turned a profit, is reportedly worth $500 billion.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n