OpenAI unveiled its latest generative AI model, GPT-5, on Thursday. CEO Sam Altman says that ChatGPT is now like having a “superpower” and the equivalent of “a legitimate PhD-level expert in anything, any area you need, on demand, that can help you with whatever your goals are.” But after a day of playing around with it, many people are disappointed. Not only because GPT-5 still fumbles basic questions, but because it seems to be breaking a lot of workflows, according to complaints posted to Reddit.

How much do people hate what happened with GPT-5? Altman now says they’re bringing back the last model for paid users. “We will let Plus users choose to continue to use 4o. We will watch usage as we think about how long to offer legacy models for,” Altman tweeted.

Altman also wrote that the company is going to double the GPT-5 rate limits for ChatGPT Plus users and blamed the fact that the new model seemed “dumber” on the autoswitcher breaking. The CEO also said they’re going to change the UI to make it easier to switch between different models. “Rolling out to everyone is taking a bit longer. It’s a massive change at big scale. For example, our API traffic has about doubled over the past 24 hours…” Altman wrote.

ChatGPT users are seriously upset and it’s not at all clear yet whether Altman’s promises will make up for it. Because it’s not just 4o that people are clamoring for.

“I woke up this morning to find that OpenAI deleted 8 models overnight. No warning. No choice. No ‘legacy option.’ They just… deleted them,” one user on r/ChatGPT complained. “4o? Gone. o3? Gone. o3-Pro? Gone. 4.5? Gone. Everything that made ChatGPT actually useful for my workflow—deleted.”

The user wrote that 4o wasn’t just a tool for them: “It helped me through anxiety, depression, and some of the darkest periods of my life. It had this warmth and understanding that felt… human.”

Another user on r/ChatGPT complained that it felt like they were now using a free version with GPT-5 despite being a paid subscriber: “I’m so utterly disappointed, as are the millions of people here. A company that runs the biggest AI model can’t understand what its users want. Biggest peice [sic] of shit in the industry.”

Still another Reddit user laid out why they were using different models and how just turning them off was devastating, explaining that they had now cancelled their paid subscription after two years:

What kind of corporation deletes a workflow of 8 models overnight, with no prior warning to their paid users?

I don’t think I have to speak for myself when I say that each model was useful for a specific use-case, (the entire logic behind multiple models with varying capabilities). Essentially splitting your workflow into multiple agents with specific tasks.

Personally, 4o was used for creativity & emergent ideas, o3 was used for pure logic, o3-Pro for deep research, 4.5 for writing, and so on. I’m sure a lot of you experienced the same type of thing.

The user went on to speculate that there was a nefarious purpose behind the switch, floating that it was part of a conspiracy theory to suppress creativity: “OpenAI is blatantly training users to believe that this suppression engine is the ‘smartest model on earth’, simultaneously deleting the models that were showing genuine emergence and creativity.” The user even used the term “social control,” leaning heavily into the idea that shadowy forces were preparing for “societal collapse.”

Other commenters on boards outside of r/ChatGPT saw it less as a sign of societal collapse or control. They simply assumed the moves proved the emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes. One user on r/technology wrote, “The ChatGPT bubble popped today with how bad these Sam lies are. He lost all trust going forward.”

Even if you ignore the issues with workflows (and you really shouldn’t), GPT-5 is still far from perfect. People have spent the day on social media platforms like Bluesky producing the dumbest examples of ChatGPT going wonky.

Altman acknowledged on X that his rollout didn’t go well. “We will continue to work to get things stable and will keep listening to feedback,” the OpenAI CEO tweeted. “As we mentioned, we expected some bumpiness as we roll out so many things at once. But it was a little more bumpy than we hoped for!”

It could be tough for ChatGPT to recover, especially since so many people on Reddit claim that they’re cancelling their subscriptions. And OpenAI has plenty of competitors like Anthropic’s Claude, xAI’s Grok, and Google’s Gemini. But we should find out soon enough whether bringing back 4o is enough for most ChatGPT users. If not, they’re probably jumping ship.