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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Is anyone watching the chatGPT 5 "bring back 4o" meltdown on /r/chatGPT and /r/OpenAI?

It's insane. People are losing their shit about 4o being taken away to the point it's back now (lmfao). There's also a huge push of "don't mock others for using 4o as a trusted friend you just don't understand". It's honestly equal parts hilarious and horrifying.

For additional fun, browse the comments, obviously there are idiots on the internet, but these people are cooked.

I had thought the internet collectively agreed that RLHF had resulted in glazing that was a huge issue. But it turns out a sizable amount of people actually loved it.

Also funny, gpt5 can glaze you if you ask it, but I guess the median Redditor complaining about this doesn't understand custom instructions. Similarly, people are clearly giving gpt5 custom instructions to be as robotic as possible and then posting screenshots of it... being robotic.

The whole thing makes me rather worried about the state of western society/mental health, in the same way that OnlyFans "chat to the creator" feature does. We need government enforced grass-touching or something.

I checked the subreddit when I heard about GPT-5 coming out, I was similarly surprised out how outraged everyone was. I get that people get used to a certain way of doing things. Every UI change will get complaints, but AI is advancing so rapidly that I figured that impulse would be trumped by the sheer improvements.

Having used it, I've found it much better than GPT-4, although I'm not a power user so I couldn't say why. The answers require less refining, it isn't hallucinating weblinks like it was before. Overall just much more pleasant and effective to use. I've even started (secretly) using it at work.

It's literally a mass delusion. I'll grant them there is a slight difference, but as a non-delusional person 5>4o. The difference is a win for the consumer.

It's also just so funny to me that you can just ask it to be a little sycophantic yes man and it will. Why freak out? Just tell it what you want (but that's embarrassing to have to ask, is my best guess).

There is also the fact that they are calling a whole bunch of models "GPT-5" and selecting which one to use based on context clues (e.g. giving you the reasoning model if you ask it to please think hard). I understand that the previously available model names (o3, 4o, o4-mini, 4.1, and 4.5) were a fucking mess, but they should have clarified things instead of going full Apple.

Yeah they're kind of fucked either way given they committed to the unforced error of having the most nonsensical product naming scheme.

I do enjoy gpt5 has unlimited thinking model access if you use the one weird trick of saying "think hard before responding" and it doesn't even eat into your gpt5-thinking rate limit as a plus user.

I literally haven't selected "gpt5-thinking" in the model selector as a result, it's quite funny.