OpenAI’s rolling out GPT-5, their latest language model, and the marketing machine is in full swing. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, dangles the term “AGI” like a carrot. It’s the same vague promise of a system that outdoes humans in economically valuable tasks. But let’s cut through the jargon. GPT-5 isn’t quite there yet. It still can’t learn continuously post-deployment. Sounds like another AI product with a fancy label slapped on it.
OpenAI says GPT-5 is smarter, faster, and cuts down on hallucinations. Altman compares it to the iPhone’s leap to Retina displays. Talk about overselling. Sure, it might seem like you’re chatting with a PhD, but remember, it’s still a machine. They’ve also introduced GPT-5-mini and GPT-5-nano. The naming sounds like a car lineup, but it’s more about tiered access and controlling who gets the premium features.
Now, here’s the kicker. If you’re a developer, using GPT-5 will set you back $1.25 per million input tokens and $10 per million output. That’s a price hike, but they claim the mini and nano versions are cheaper. It’s all about squeezing more bucks out of the API, plain and simple.
Pro users will soon connect their Gmail, Contacts, and Calendar to ChatGPT. It’s the kind of data integration that raises eyebrows about privacy. OpenAI’s also throwing in personality presets like Cynic and Robot. Sounds gimmicky, but it’s a nod to how they’re trying to humanize AI interactions.
GPT-5’s API offers more models and lets users toggle between detailed or direct responses. The big news? A 256,000-token context window. In layman’s terms, it can handle more complex conversations. But let’s not kid ourselves. The real test is how well it performs in real scenarios, not controlled demos.
Their blog boasts about beating previous models in coding benchmarks and health-related questions. Impressive on paper, but these tests are designed to showcase strengths, not limitations. They claim GPT-5 hallucinates less and is less deceptive. But a system card admitting it still deceives and needs more research doesn’t inspire confidence.
OpenAI’s boasting 700 million weekly active users and millions more in business and API users. But the head of ChatGPT says, “The vibes of this model are really good.” That’s marketing fluff. What matters is whether this model delivers consistent, reliable performance — something past iterations have struggled with.
In the end, GPT-5 is another incremental step in AI’s long journey. It’s not the game-changer some might sell it as, but a tool that, like all the others before it, promises a lot. The real test will be how it handles the gritty, less glamorous demands of real-world applications.
