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Up to date Friday August 8, 5:21 pm ET: shortly after this publish’s publication, OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman introduced the corporate would restore entry to GPT-4o and different outdated fashions for chosen customers, admitting the GPT-5 launch was “extra bumpy than we hoped for.”
The launch of OpenAI’s lengthy anticipated new mannequin, GPT-5, is off to a rocky begin to say the least.
Even forgiving errors in charts and voice demos throughout yesterday’s livestreamed presentation of the brand new mannequin (truly 4 separate fashions, and a ‘Pondering’ mode that may be engaged for 3 of them), a variety of person stories have emerged since GPT-5’s launch exhibiting it erring badly when fixing comparatively easy issues that previous OpenAI fashions — and rivals from competing AI labs — reply appropriately.
For instance, information scientist Colin Fraser posted screenshots exhibiting GPT-5 getting a math proof incorrect (whether or not 8.888 repeating is the same as 9 — it’s in fact, not).
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It additionally failed on a easy algebra arithmetic downside that elementary schoolers might most likely nail, 5.9 = x + 5.11.
Utilizing GPT-5 to evaluate OpenAI’s personal faulty presentation charts additionally didn’t yield useful or appropriate responses.
It additionally failed on this trickier math phrase downside under (which, to be truthful, stumped this human at first…although Elon Musk’s Grok 4 AI answered it appropriately. For a touch, consider the truth that flagstones on this case can’t be divided into smaller parts. They have to stay in tact as 80 separate models, so no halves or quarters).
The older 4o mannequin carried out higher for me on a minimum of certainly one of these math issues. Sadly, OpenAI is slowly deprecating these older fashions — together with the previous default GPT-4o and the highly effective reasoning mannequin o3 — for customers of ChatGPT, although they’ll proceed to be out there within the utility programming interface (API) for builders for the foreseeable future.
Not nearly as good at coding as benchmarks point out
Despite the fact that OpenAI’s inner benchmarks and a few third-party exterior ones have proven GPT-5 to outperform all different fashions at codingit seems that in actual world utilization, Anthropic’s lately up to date Claude Opus 4.1 appears to do a greater job at “one-shotting” sure duties, that’s, finishing the person’s desired utility or software program construct to their specs. See an instance under from developer Justin Solar posted to X :
Opus 4.1’s one-shot try at “create a 3d capybara petting zoo” – 8 minutes complete
This was truthfully fairly insane, not solely are the capybaras means cuter and transferring, there are particular person pet affinity ranges, a day/night time switcher, feeding, and even a screenshot characteristic pic.twitter.com/FiKTO3FKK4
— justin (@justinsunyt) August 7, 2025
As well as, a report from safety agency SPLX discovered that OpenAI’s inner security layer left main gaps in areas like enterprise alignment and vulnerability to immediate injection and obfuscated logic assaults.
Whereas anecdotal, the checking the temperature on how the mannequin is faring with early AI adopters appears to point a cold reception.
AI influencer and former Googler Bilawal Sidhu posted a ballot on X asking for a “vibe examine” from his followers and the broader userbase, and up to now, with 172 votes in, the overwhelming response is “Kinda mid.”
Alright, GPT-5 vibe examine
— Bilawal Sidhu (@bilawalsidhu) August 7, 2025
And because the pseudonymous AI Leaks and Information account wrote“The overwhelming consensus on GPT-5 from each X and the Reddit AMA are overwhelmingly unfavourable.”
The overwhelming consensus on GPT-5 from each X and the Reddit AMA are overwhelmingly unfavourable
Most customers are disgruntled in regards to the damaged mannequin picker and non-pro customers not getting access to legacy fashions
What are your preliminary ideas on GPT-5?
— AI Leaks and Information (@AILeaksAndNews) August 8, 2025
Tibor Blaho, lead engineer at AIPRM and a well-liked AI leaks and information poster on X, summarized the numerous issues with the ChatGPT-5 rollout in a superb publishhighlighting that one of many new marquee options — an computerized “router” in ChatGPT that chooses a pondering or non-thinking mode for the underlying GPT-5 mannequin relying on the issue of the question — has develop into one of many chief complaints, given the mannequin appeared to default to non-thinking mode for a lot of customers.
A bit unhappy how the GPT-5 launch goes up to now, particularly after the lengthy wait and excessive expectations
– The automated switching between fashions (the router) appears partly damaged/unreliable
– It is unclear precisely which mannequin you are truly interacting with (commonplace or mini,…
– Tibor Blaho (@btibor91) August 8, 2025
Competitors ready within the wings
Thus, the sentiment towards ChatGPT-5 is way from universally constructive, highlighting a serious downside for OpenAI because it faces growing competitors from main U.S. rivals like Google and Anthropic, and a rising record of free, open supply and highly effective Chinese language LLMs providing options that many U.S. fashions lack.
Take the Alibaba Qwen Crew of AI researchers, who simply in the present day up to date their extremely performant Qwen 3 mannequin to have 1 million token context — giving customers the power to alternate almost 4x as a lot data with the mannequin in a single again/forth interplay as GPT-5 gives.
Given OpenAI’s different massive launch this week — that of recent open supply gpt-oss fashions — additionally obtained a blended reception from early customers, issues should not trying up for the primary devoted AI firm by customers proper now (700 million weekly lively customers of ChatGPT as of this month).
Certainly, that is additionally exemplified by customers of the betting market Polymarket overwhelmingly deciding following the discharge of GPT-5 that Google would probably have one of the best AI mannequin by the tip of this month, August 2025.
Different energy customers like Otherside AI co-founder and CEO Matt Shumerwho obtained early entry to GPT-5 and blogged about it favorably in a evaluate right hereopined that views would shift as extra individuals discovered one of the best methods to make use of the brand new mannequin and adjusted their integration approaches:
Lots of people who’re having a foul expertise are utilizing GPT-5 in agent harnesses that are not but optimized for it.
For each new mannequin launch, there is a time lag between launch + when firms that combine the mannequin have it actually working properly.
Agent firms rush to…
— Matt Shumer (@mattshumer_) August 8, 2025
Whereas it’s nonetheless early days for GPT-5 — and the sentiment might change dramatically as extra customers get their palms on it and take a look at it for various duties — the early indications should not trying like this can be a “house run” launch for OpenAI in the identical means that prior releases resembling GPT-4, and even the newer 4o and o3, had been. And that’s a regarding indicator for an organization that simply raised one more funding sphericalbut stays unprofitable attributable to its excessive prices of analysis and growth.
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