OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says GPT-5 makes him feel ‘useless’
Speaking on comedian Theo Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend,” Altman recounted a recent moment that drove the point home.
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OpenAI is gearing up for another leap in the generative AI race with the anticipated launch of GPT-5—a model already creating buzz for its remarkable capabilities. As testing picks up pace and benchmark results pour in, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has made a startling admission: his own creation made him feel useless.
Speaking on comedian Theo Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend,” Altman recounted a recent moment that drove the point home. When faced with a complex question in an email, he turned to GPT-5 for help. The response from the AI was so precise and effective that it shook him.
“I felt useless relative to the AI in this thing that I felt I should have been able to do, and I couldn’t, and it was really hard. But the AI just did it like that. It was a weird feeling,” Altman said during the interview.
A Glimpse Into GPT-5’s Capabilities Altman’s comment may sound like pre-launch hype—but industry watchers believe it’s more than just PR. GPT-5 is already being tested on benchmark platforms, and early indicators suggest that it could mark a significant advance over previous iterations.
Notably, OpenAI plans to make GPT-5 more accessible than its predecessors, with mini and nano versions expected to be available via its API. This move could extend the technology to a broader audience, potentially including users of the free ChatGPT model.
According to sources, GPT-5 will incorporate OpenAI’s new o3 reasoning engine, originally thought to be a separate system. This integration could make GPT-5 not only faster but also more coherent and contextually intelligent, offering a more unified experience across tasks ranging from search to advanced problem-solving.
Launch on the Horizon Altman has already confirmed GPT-5’s development publicly, and his casual reference to using it in daily scenarios only strengthens speculation of a possible August 2025 release.
With GPT-5, OpenAI may once again redefine what’s possible with conversational AI—one that’s not just better at answering questions, but perhaps better than us at things we once considered deeply human.
