"GPT-3 sort of felt like talking to a high school student. (...) GPT-4 felt like you’re talking to a college student. GPT-5 is the first time that it really feels like talking to a PhD-level expert." This is how Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, introduced the latest version of the language processing software that powers the ChatGPT chatbot.

Launched on Thursday, August 7, GPT-5 was made available to all of the chatbot's users. It was, unsurprisingly, designed to be faster and more accurate, even for the most complex questions. "I tried going back to GPT-4 and it was quite miserable," Altman said, in a press conference he held the day before. GPT-5 is clearly superior, he said, adding: "It reminds me of when the iPhone went from those giant-pixel old ones to the retina display, and then I went back to using one of those big pixelated things, and I was like, 'Wow, I can’t believe how bad we had it.'"

This version, the California-based company stated, will make fewer mistakes and generate fewer "hallucinations." GPT-4 would often fabricate responses when it lacked sufficient information, but, for GPT-5, they had "trained the model to be honest," said Alex Beutel, safety research lead, in the presentation. OpenAI claimed the model was now able to inform users about its limitations. They also said it would be better at producing computer code: OpenAI demonstrated how, using a prompt describing a planned website, which featured a quiz and a mini-game, the software generated 600 lines of code in a matter of seconds, and allowed users to view and test the result.

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