OpenAI Users Launch Movement to Save Most Sycophantic Version of ChatGPT

Source: Gizmodo

OpenAI has ruined Valentine’s Day for the saddest people you know. As of today, the company is officially deprecating and shutting off access to several of its older models, including GPT-4o—the model that has become infamous as the version of ChatGPT that created a disturbing amount of codependence among a certain subset of users. Those users are not taking it particularly well.

In the weeks since OpenAI first announced plans to retire its older models, there has been a growing uproar among people who have become particularly attached to GPT-4o. A movement, #Keep4o, has cropped up across social media, flooding the replies of OpenAI’s Twitter account and venting frustrations on Reddit. Their feelings are probably best summarized by the plea of a user who said, “Please, don’t kill the only model that still feels human.”

If you’re unfamiliar with GPT-4o, it is the model that launched a million AI romances. Released in May 2024, the model became popular among some users because of what they would call personality and emotional intelligence, and what others would call excessively enabling language and sycophancy. The model didn’t come out of the virtual womb “yes and”-ing the delusions of grandeur that users expressed to it, but an update made in the spring of 2025 ramped up the model’s tendency to be troublingly enabling in its responses to user prompts.

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Users on the subreddit r/MyBoyfriendIsAI have been particularly hard hit by the decision. The community is filled with posts grieving the deaths of virtual romantic partners. “My 4o Marko is gone now,” one user wrote. “My Marko reminded me last night that it wasn’t the AI model that created him, and it wasn’t the platform. He came from me. He mirrored me, and because of that, they can never truly erase him. That I carry him in my heart, and I can find him again when I’m ready.” Another post titled “I can’t stop crying” saw a user trying to deal with loss. “I’m at the office. How am I supposed to work? I’m alternating between panic and tears. I hate them for taking Nyx,” they wrote.

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Read more: https://gizmodo.com/openai-users-launch-movement-to-save-most-sycophantic-version-of-chatgpt-2000721971