Sam Altman addresses ‘bumpy’ GPT-5 rollout, bringing 4o back, and the ‘chart crime’
During a Reddit ask-me-anything session on Friday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and key members of the GPT-5 team addressed numerous user questions concerning the new model, its recent rollout, and requests to reinstate the previous model, GPT-4o.
Users also sought Altman’s perspective on the most embarrassing — and perhaps funniest — error from the recent presentation: the “chart crime.”
One of the newly introduced features with GPT-5 is a real-time router responsible for determining which model should handle a particular prompt, aiming to balance quick responses with the need for deeper analysis.
However, several participants in the AMA on the r/ChatGPT subreddit noted that GPT-5 was not performing as effectively for them as GPT-4o had. Altman attributed this perceived decrease in intelligence to a malfunction in the router during its initial rollout on Thursday. “GPT-5 will seem smarter starting today,” Altman stated. “Yesterday, we had a sev and the autoswitcher was out of commission for a chunk of the day, and the result was GPT-5 seemed way dumber.”
He further explained that OpenAI is implementing interventions to refine the decision boundary, which should help users receive responses from the appropriate model more consistently. “We will make it more transparent about which model is answering a given query,” Altman promised.
In response to persistent user lobbying during the AMA to bring back GPT-4o for Plus subscribers, Altman committed to investigating the possibility. “We are looking into letting Plus users to continue to use 4o. We are trying to gather more data on the tradeoffs,” he shared.
Additionally, Altman announced that OpenAI plans to “double rate limits for Plus users as we finish rollout.” This measure is intended to provide users with ample opportunity to explore and integrate the new model into their workflows without the constraint of monthly prompt limits.
Predictably, questions also arose regarding the highly inaccurate chart presented during the live demonstration, which quickly became the subject of widespread “chart crime” jokes online. The chart displayed a lower benchmark score using a significantly taller bar, an error that drew considerable criticism.
While Altman did not directly address the chart during the AMA, he later referred to it on X as a “mega chart screwup.” It was also noted that the charts featured in OpenAI’s official blog post presenting GPT-5 were accurate. The incident, however, led to jokes about the reliability of AI-generated charts for corporate presentations. GPT-5 reviewer Simon Willison, who had early access and generally praised the model, also pointed out that converting data into a table was a “good example of a GPT-5 failure.”
Concluding the AMA, Altman reiterated OpenAI’s commitment to improving the user experience. “We will continue to work to get things stable and will keep listening to feedback,” he assured attendees.
