OpenAI Brings Back 4o After GPT-5 Backlash While Altman Endures AI Talent War

The AI race is moving faster than ever, and every new release comes with big promises and bigger arguments over whether these AI models are truly smarter or just better marketed.

Technology companies are competing not just to outdo one another, but to set the standard for what AI systems can do for businesses and consumers in daily life. This week, it was OpenAI’s turn, rolling out GPT-5 after months of build-up from CEO Sam Altman.

The rollout, however, was met with mixed reviews. OpenAI’s highly anticipated GPT-5 was touted as a leap in coding ability and complex reasoning, with the potential to make ChatGPT a “Ph.D.-level expert.”


While some early users praised its competence, others called the improvements marginal. “It’s my new favorite model,” developer Simon Willison wrote, adding that it’s “not a dramatic departure from what we’ve had before.”

A major change and point of confusion was about how GPT-5 operates. It automatically switches between versions of varying sophistication depending on the query, meaning users aren’t always getting the most advanced output.

On launch day, that autoswitcher malfunctioned, leading Altman to admit the system “seemed way dumber” for a part of the day.

The rollout comes as OpenAI faces intense competition from U.S. and Chinese rivals, while trying to convert its 700 million weekly ChatGPT users into paying customers to fund soaring AI infrastructure costs. Early benchmarks are mixed, as GPT-5 tops some popularity charts but lags behind xAI’s Grok in others.

Reactions have ranged from Wharton professor Ethan Mollick’s marveling at GPT-5’s ability to produce research and clever writing to Reddit users pushing back on the lack of control over its responses.

For now, GPT-5’s impact may come down to more than just benchmarks; it’s about whether the model feels like a meaningful upgrade in daily use. In fact, CEO Sam Altman has promised more transparency going forward.

For many, the disappointment with GPT-5 went beyond its quirks or launch-day glitches. The bigger issue was how it changed the way people used ChatGPT. Long-time subscribers quickly noticed that several older models, each suited to different tasks, had vanished overnight.

For users who had split their work across multiple versions, from creativity to deep research, the sudden shift wasn’t simply an inconvenience; it broke their workflows entirely.

Within a day of launch, backlash hit hard. Users on Reddit complained GPT-5 disrupted established workflows and replaced older models without warning. One said, “4o wasn’t just a tool for me… it had this warmth and understanding that felt… human.” Others accused OpenAI of ignoring paying customers’ needs, with one calling it “the biggest piece of sh*t in the industry.”

In response, Altman announced that ChatGPT Plus users will soon be able to choose the older 4o model, doubled GPT-5 rate limits, and promised an easier way to switch models. Still, frustration runs deep as some subscribers have already cancelled, and conspiracy theories about “suppression” of creativity are circulating.

Still, the GPT-5 rollout drama is only one aspect of a much bigger battle as OpenAI is fighting to secure "rare minds” who can shape the future of AI itself.

AI leaders like OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Microsoft are dangling jaw-dropping offers to a tiny circle of engineers they believe could crack the code to superintelligence.

“Definitely this is the most intense talent market I have seen in my career,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told. “But if you think about the economic value being created by these people and how much we’re spending on compute… maybe the market stays like this.”

So how tiny is this circle? Altman calls it a “medium-sized handful,” the select few who might discover the last algorithmic ideas needed to reach superintelligence.

However, he thinks the pool is bigger than most believe, with “many thousands” potentially capable of those breakthroughs, and “tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands” who could contribute to the work.


The money on the table is staggering. Altman said back in June that Meta had made “giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” including $100 million signing bonuses and even larger annual packages.

One reported offer to a top AI researcher hit the $1 billion mark, with Meta pouring $14.3 billion into Scale AI and bringing in its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to head a new superintelligence team.

While cutthroat competition, OpenAI’s Altman warned that chasing only a few “shiny names” could be a mistake. The real game-changing idea, he says, might come from less obvious but equally capable minds.

Have you used GPT-5 yet, and does it live up to the hype? Is Sam Altman right about the future of superintelligence being defined by a handful of bright minds?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!