Sam Altman on GPT-5 Rollout Challenges, GPT-4o's Return, and the 'Chart Crime' Debate

During a Reddit AMA session on Friday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and key members of the GPT-5 team fielded numerous questions about the new model, alongside requests to reinstate the previous GPT-4o.

Attendees also asked Altman about the most awkward—and arguably funniest—gaffe from the presentation: the infamous "chart crime."

One of GPT-5's new features is a real-time router that selects which model to use for each prompt, enabling either swift replies or more thoughtful, processed answers.

However, several participants in the r/ChatGPT Reddit AMA expressed that GPT-5 wasn’t performing as well as GPT-4o. Altman explained that the "dumber" impression was due to a router malfunction when the model launched on Thursday.

"GPT-5 should seem smarter starting today. Yesterday, we experienced a service issue, and the autoswitcher was down for much of the day, which made GPT-5 appear significantly less capable. We're also making adjustments to the decision boundary to better route queries to the right model. Plus, we plan to make it clearer which model is answering your query," Altman assured.

Plus subscribers campaigned so strongly for GPT-4o's return that Altman committed to exploring the possibility. "We're considering letting Plus users continue using GPT-4o and gathering more data on the trade-offs," he stated.

Altman also announced, "We will double rate limits for Plus users as we complete the rollout." This will allow users to experiment with and adapt to the new model without stressing over monthly prompt limits.

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Unsurprisingly, Altman was also questioned about the highly inaccurate chart presented during the live demo, which quickly became a meme as the "chart crime." The chart displayed a lower benchmark score with a disproportionately tall bar.

While Altman didn’t address the chart during the AMA, he previously referred to it on X as a "mega chart screwup." Others noted that the charts in the official blog post were accurate.

But the blunder had already sparked widespread jokes about using GPT for corporate chart creation. GPT-5 reviewer Simon Willison, who had early access and praised the model overall, also highlighted that converting data into tables remained a "good example of a GPT-5 failure."

In any case, Altman pledged to address the issues that concerned users the most. He concluded the AMA by stating, "We will keep working to stabilize the system and will continue listening to your feedback."