Part 3/9:
OpenAI had ambitious plans for GPT-5 — codenamed Orion — which had been in development for over eighteen months. Microsoft anticipated a significant leap in AI performance by mid-2024, but reports suggest that the new model consistently fell short. Problems during training runs reportedly surfaced, indicating that GPT-4.5 might have been a fallback designation for what was initially intended to be GPT-5 due to unmet expectations.
This raises questions about the model's performance and the financial implications of maintaining such a costly system without adequate returns. Users now find themselves debating the value offered by GPT-4.5, particularly when its subscription model costs a staggering $200 per month for what many perceive as marginally better output than GPT-4.