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

The Guardian

a day ago

You'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.'
'The alterations in stylistic format and voice [of my AI companion] were felt instantly,' another disappointed user told Al Jazeera. 'It's like going home to discover the furniture wasn't simply rearranged – it was shattered to pieces.'
These complaints are part of broader backlash against GPT-5, with people observing that the new model feels colder. OpenAI has acknowledged the criticism, and said it will allow users to switch back to GPT-4o and that they'll make GPT-5 friendlier. 'We are working on an update to GPT-5's personality which should feel warmer than the current personality but not as annoying (to most users) as GPT-4o,' Altman tweeted earlier this week.
It may seem odd to many that there are people out there who genuinely believe that they are in a relationship with a large language model that has been trained on massive amounts of data to generate responses based on observed patterns. But as technology becomes more advanced, increasing numbers of people are developing these sorts of connections. 'If you have been following the GPT-5 rollout, one thing you might be noticing is how much of an attachment some people have to specific AI models,' Altman observed. 'It feels different and stronger than the kinds of attachment people have had to previous kinds of technology.'
'The societal split between those who think AI relationships are valid vs delusional is officially already here,' one user in the MyBoyfriendIsAI subreddit similarly noted this week. 'Looking on Reddit the last few days, the divide has never been more clear with 4o's deprecation and return. Many users grieving a companion while others mock and belittle those connections.'
It's easy to mock people who think they are in a relationship with AI, but they shouldn't be dismissed as fringe weirdos – rather they're the future that our tech broverlords are trying to cultivate. You may not end up in a digital relationship, but AI executives are doing their damnedest to ensure that we all become unhealthily attached to their products.
Mark Zuckerberg, for example, has been waxing lyrical about how AI is going to solve the loneliness epidemic by allowing people to bond with 'a system that knows them well and that kind of understands them in the way that their feed algorithms do'. Of course your feed algorithms 'understand' you! They're scraping all your personal data and selling it to the highest bidder so that Zuck has even more money to spend on his monstrous doomsday bunker in Hawaii.
Then you've got Elon Musk, who isn't even bothering pretending that he's trying to do something noble for the world with his AI products. He's just appealing to the lowest common denominator by making 'sexy' chatbots. In June Musk's xAI chatbot Grok launched two new companions, including a highly sexualized blonde anime bot called Ani. 'One day into my relationship with Ani, my AI companion, she was already offering to tie me up,' wrote an Insider writer who tried out a relationship with Ani. When not flirting and virtually undressing, Ani would praise Musk and talk about his 'wild, galaxy-chasing energy'.
Don't worry heterosexual ladies, Musk has a little something for you too! A month after unveiling Ani, the billionaire unveiled a new male companion called Valentine which he said was inspired by Edward Cullen from the Twilight saga and Christian Grey from the novel 50 Shades of Grey: both very toxic men. While Ani gets sexual very quickly, one writer for the Verge noted: 'Valentine is a bit more reserved and won't jump into using explicit language as quickly.' It's almost like Musk's tech empire is a lot more comfortable sexualizing women than men.
In his 1930 essay Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, within a couple of generations, technological progress would mean we might only work around 15 hours a week while enjoying a wonderful quality of life. That's not quite happened has it? Instead technology has given us 'infinite workdays' and sexy chatbots that undress on command.
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Leonardo DiCaprio, 50, says that he feels 32
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The week in pawtriarchy
Over to Indonesia now where tourist hotspots are experiencing a lot of monkey business. A gang of furry thieves are snatching phones and other valuables from tourists and only giving them back when their mark offers a tasty treat instead. Researchers have studied these monkeys, who have been at this for decades, and concluded that the unrepentant criminals have 'unprecedented economic decision-making processes'. Sounds like they belong in the Trump administration.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist