How did you react to the August 7 release of GPT-5, OpenAI’s latest version of ChatGPT? The company behind the model heralded it as a world-changing development, with weeks of hype and a glitzy livestreamed unveiling of its capabilities. Social media users’ reactions were more muted, marked by confusion and anger at the removal of many key models people had grown attached to.

In the aftermath, CEO Sam Altman unwittingly revealed why the gulf between OpenAI’s expectations for GPT-5’s reception and the reality was so wide. It turns out that large numbers of us aren’t using AI to its fullest extent. In a post on X explaining why OpenAI appeared to be bilking fee-paying Plus users (full disclosure: that includes me)—who hand over $20 per month to access the second-highest tier of the model—by

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