When OpenAI rolled out GPT-5 in 2025, the hype was off the charts.
They called it “PhD-level intelligence”. They promised it would be smarter, more creative, more human-like than ever before.
Tech journalists drooled over the marketing. Twitter (or X, if you insist) was flooded with screenshots of “amazing” first impressions.
But as the days went on, reality hit!!!! and it hit hard.
Instead of a leap forward, GPT-5 feels like a step backward.
It’s slower, dumber in certain contexts, overly censored, and stripped of the personality that made GPT-4 fun to use.
In fact, many long-time ChatGPT users have already started calling it the most useless AI release of the year. And they’re not wrong.
1. Shallow, Over-Sanitized Answers
The first and loudest complaint is simple: GPT-5 answers like a corporate intern who’s terrified of saying the wrong thing.
Every response is wrapped in layers of “safe” language and generic phrasing. It no longer feels like you’re talking to an intelligent entity — it feels like you’re reading a press release.
In GPT-4, you could push the boundaries, brainstorm wildly, or explore nuanced ideas without it constantly running back to its invisible compliance officer.
With GPT-5, even harmless creative prompts often get watered down into bland, pre-approved nonsense.
It’s like someone took the AI’s personality, put it through a HR risk-management filter, and handed it back stripped of all edge.
2. Slower Without Being Smarter
One of the promises of GPT-5 was that it would “think more deeply” before answering.
What users got instead was an AI that pretends to think deeply, taking longer pauses before spitting out answers that are often no better than GPT-4 and sometimes worse.
Hacker News threads and Reddit posts are full of people saying the same thing:
“It’s slower, but the answers aren’t worth the wait.”
“It feels like I’m waiting for a gourmet meal and getting reheated leftovers.”
If OpenAI’s goal was to simulate human hesitation, congratulations !!!!! mission accomplished. Unfortunately, in a productivity tool, hesitation without payoff is just wasted time.
3. Accuracy Is Falling Apart
Here’s where it gets really embarrassing.
Despite the “PhD-level” marketing, GPT-5 has been caught making elementary mistakes:
- Misspelling “Northern Territory.”
- Inventing fictional countries.
- Getting basic geography wrong.
- Mixing up historical events.
And this isn’t cherry-picking. These are real examples that users have posted online in the past few weeks.
When an AI model fumbles simple facts, it destroys trust.
No one cares about your “deep reasoning abilities” if you can’t spell properly or recall actual locations on Earth.
4. The Death of Model Choice
One of the stealth changes that infuriated long-time users was the removal or restriction of older models.
Plus users , the paying middle-tier, lost easy access to GPT-4o and other previous favorites. Instead, GPT-5 is served through an “automatic router” that decides which model to give you.
Sounds convenient, right? In practice, it often means you get a worse answer than before, and you can’t switch back unless you’re on the expensive Pro plan.
This is like Netflix forcing you to watch the latest reboot instead of the original classic you actually wanted.
People didn’t sign up for AI roulette. They signed up for consistent, reliable performance.
5. GPT-5 Lost Its Soul
Let’s be real, part of what made GPT-4 addictive was that it felt alive.
Not alive in a sci-fi way, but alive in the sense that it could banter, joke, and brainstorm like a clever human partner.
It could be blunt. It could be weird. It could surprise you.
GPT-5 has none of that.
It’s like talking to a burnt-out secretary who’s overworked, underpaid, and terrified of saying the wrong thing in a corporate meeting.
Every answer feels sterilized, filtered, and double-checked by the fun police.
And here’s the cruel irony, this “safety” doesn’t even make the AI more accurate. It just makes it boring.
6. The Backlash Is Real
If you think this is just personal opinion, think again.
Within days of launch, thousands of users flocked to Reddit threads with titles like “GPT-5 is awful!” and “Did they ruin ChatGPT on purpose?”
Tech media piled on:
- TechRadar reported that GPT-5 “feels like a downgrade” and noted the surge of complaints online.
- The Guardian called out its embarrassing spelling and geography mistakes.
- Medium writers documented inconsistent reasoning, poor summaries, and worse table formatting than older models.
- Windows Central said GPT-5 feels like a “corporate beige zombie” functional but soulless.
Even the Wikipedia page for GPT-5 now includes a section about user backlash and performance complaints. That’s how bad it is.
7. Why This Matters
AI isn’t just a toy anymore.
Businesses, researchers, and creators rely on it for real work.
When a major model update actively reduces creativity, slows down workflow, and removes options that used to exist, it’s not just annoying, it’s damaging.
This isn’t about “people resisting change.” This is about paying for a tool and watching it get worse.
Imagine buying a sports car, and the manufacturer remotely updates it to go slower, handle worse, and forbid you from driving in certain places, all while charging the same subscription fee. That’s GPT-5.
The Verdict: A Hype-Fueled Flop
GPT-5 is a textbook example of overpromising and underdelivering.
Instead of pushing AI into new territory, it’s pulled it back into a safe, neutered box.
It’s slower. It’s less creative. It’s over-censored. And it removes user control.
Yes, it can still do a lot of things. Yes, it’s technically impressive in certain contexts.
But the day-to-day experience for many users is worse than before and that’s what counts.
Unless OpenAI listens to the backlash and brings back what made GPT-4 great, GPT-5 will go down not as the next great leap for AI, but as the year’s most overhyped, over-managed, and underwhelming tech release.
Final Thought: The future of AI doesn’t need more corporate polish, it needs boldness, honesty, and freedom. GPT-5 has none of those. And until it does, it’ll keep sucking, no matter how much marketing fluff you wrap it in.
