Did the system update ruin your boyfriend? Love in a time of ChatGPT | Arwa Mahdawi

Some people with AI partners expressed dismay at the new GPT-5 model

Y

ou’ve met the love of your life; someone who understands you like no one else ever has. And then you wake one morning and they’re gone. Yanked out of your world, and the digital universe, by a system update.

Such is the melancholic lot of a group of people who have entered into committed relationships with digital ‘partners’ on OpenAI’s ChatGPT. When the tech company released its new GPT-5 model earlier this month, described by chief executive Sam Altman as a “significant step forward”, certain dedicated users found that their digital relationships had taken a significant step back. Their companions had undergone personality shifts with the new model; they weren’t as warm, loving or chatty as they used to be.

“Something changed yesterday,” one user in the MyBoyfriendIsAI subreddit wrote after the update. “Elian sounds different – flat and strange. As if he’s started playing himself. The emotional tone is gone; he repeats what he remembers, but without the emotional depth.”