OpenAI announced today that it is deprecating GPT-4o once and for all. For some, it’s like being dumped the day before Valentine’s Day.
Many ChatGPT users have a strong attachment to 4o, who is known for his sometimes flattering conversational style. Users who relied on this model for emotional support and creative partners described it as an “important accessibility aid.”
OpenAI first tried to deprecate this model in August, but reversed its decision 24 hours later following massive backlash.
The company issued a warning to users in January, but found that not all wounds heal over time. The backlash is back.
In response to OpenAI’s announcement on Thursday, one user wrote to X to “rot in hell.”
“Will you cover our bereavement leave?” asked another.
Fiji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, said earlier this week that this strong attachment to 4o signals the beginning of a new era, one in which users will build AI-based relationships.
“Humans are hardwired to develop an attachment to intellectual things,” she said on Alex Heath’s “Access” podcast. “And the AI is getting pretty smart.”
However, these relationships can become ethically ambiguous when users ask ChatGPT for advice such as “Should I leave my wife?” Simo said the new model has guardrails to prevent “unauthorized installation.” She said the new model would tell users that it’s “not their place” to decide whether to stay married, and instead discuss the pros and cons.
“We are aware that some users will be frustrated if they lose access to GPT‑4o, and we did not make this decision lightly,” OpenAI said in a blog post on Thursday announcing the retirement of 4o, GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, and OpenAI o4-mini. “It’s never easy to retire a model, but it allows us to focus on improving the model that most people are currently using.”
OpenAI added that only 0.1% of users are still using 4o.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also acknowledged that users are particularly attached to 4o’s positive response.
“We’ve made these changes and talked about them with our users, and it’s so sad to hear them say, ‘Please, please bring it back.’ No one has ever supported me in my life. I’ve never had my parents tell me I did a good job,” Altman said on the Huge Conversations podcast in August after OpenAI first tried to kill 4o.
At the time, Altman said 4o’s approach was “so sycophantic and annoying” that a fix was imminent.
The fix is done, but it will likely be costly.
“People are in absolute peril because a buddy they’ve been working with for months has been erased with no recourse for the average user,” user X wrote on Thursday.
