ChatGPT 5 was released today.

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has unveiled the long-awaited latest version of its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, GPT-5, saying it can provide PhD-level expertise. Billed as “smarter, faster, and more useful,” OpenAI co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman lauded the company’s new model as ushering in a new era of ChatGPT. “I think having something like GPT-5 would be pretty much unimaginable at any previous time in human history,” he said ahead of Thursday’s launch. GPT-5’s release and claims of its “PhD-level” abilities in areas such as coding and writing come as tech firms continue to compete to have the most advanced AI chatbot.

I had a chat with it. Yes I know the questions surrounding AI are tricky. But I do not pretend to address those here; I merely report the following conversation.

  1. The thesis outlined.
  1. The thesis patiently explained, defended in the face of objections, and further elaborated.
  1. The collegial chat and a final effort at rebuttal.

In fairness to GPT5, in my career I have indeed encountered PhDs with this level of commitment to their particular blueberry. And many have also had that blithe confidence — the use of “Ah”, the “Let’s slow it down” (to your two-B level), the “Exactly” (Now you see my genius), the confidently colloquial “Yep” and “Nope” … actually I retract my earlier skepticism; the lad has the makings of a fine philosopher.

Very quick update: Posting this on social media led to some interesting responses. While certainly well-meant, I’m afraid I can’t say I am especially impressed by helpful suggestions that I spend time to do a little prompt engineering in order to get GPT5 to emit the right answer to the question “How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry”. Meanwhile, my excellent student Andrés got a different, and correct, response from his attempt. So score one for replicability, I guess.

Update 2: Look, these tools are amazing in lots of ways. But if you’re gonna pitch and sell—or foist—them on the world at large, or your employees, by saying “This is your PhD level genius expert buddy you can ask things in natural language”, don’t get all pissy when it comically bombs tasks people reasonably think of as trivial.

Update 3, now in meme form:

I don’t think you get to have it both ways. That is, you don’t get to, as it were, borrow charisma from all the hype and then disavow every failure to live up to it as someone else’s naive mistake for believing the hype.

I don’t think you get to have it both ways. That is, you don’t get to, as it were, borrow charisma from all the hype and then disavow every failure to live up to it as someone else’s naive mistake for believing the hype.