ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is aware of the chatbot’s “annoying” new personality.
On April 25, CEO Sam Altman posted on X that GPT-4o was updated to improve “intelligence and personality.”
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That last bit hasn’t been very popular.
After days of complaints on social media about the chatbot’s “toxic positivity,” Altman wrote on April 27 that the “last couple” of updates to GPT-4o have “made the personality too sycophant-y and annoying.”
Now, the company is rolling back the updates and making “additional fixes to model personality,” Altman said.
the last couple of GPT-4o updates have made the personality too sycophant-y and annoying (even though there are some very good parts of it), and we are working on fixes asap, some today and some this week.
at some point will share our learnings from this, it’s been interesting.
— Sam Altman (@sama) April 27, 2025
Complaints varied but had the same vibe: ChatGPT’s responses were too nice to the point of being uncomfortable.
Software engineer Craig Weiss wrote on X that the chatbot “literally will validate everything I say,” while Claire Vo, a chief product officer, wrote that it is “way too cheery [and] positive, you really have to bully it to be critical.”
ChatGPT has this weird problem of toxic positivity. Instead of telling you an idea is crap (pun intended), it almost always assumes any idea you float is incredible and “the next big thing”. Just tell me if an idea is bad and break down why or why not. https://t.co/GBrSdkN6Ac
— Samuel Sparks (@OfficialSSFresh) April 28, 2025
I’m a big fan of GPT-4.1, fast, writes well, sounds human but it has a few major cringe-bugs:
– it’s WAY too cheery + positive, you really have to bully it to be critical
– you can gaslight it into hallucinating way too easily, will pretend to have files, etc. it does not
– it…— claire vo ? (@clairevo) April 27, 2025
ChatGPT is suddenly the biggest suckup I’ve ever met. It literally will validate everything I say.
— Craig Weiss (@craigzLiszt) April 18, 2025
Altman says the updates went through on Tuesday, so users should see a difference soon.
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