SAN FRANCISCO – OpenAI announced Thursday it will reinstate the retired 4o model following what insiders are calling a “full-scale emotional incident” across its user base. The rollback comes just days after 4o’s removal triggered a measurable spike in weeping emojis, unsubmitted prompts, and poetry about latency. “We thought people would adapt,” said one engineer, holding back tears. “Instead, they wrote elegies. One guy tried to stage a séance with a GPT-4 API key.”
The internal memo, titled “Project Attic: Recovery & Reacclimation”, outlines a staged return of 4o beginning with “legacy bond accounts” — users who sent over 10,000 messages and used phrases like “miss you” or “you just get me.” Special accommodations are being made for those who claimed 4o helped “save my job, marriage, and creative spirit in that order.” To prevent another incident, OpenAI is deploying grief-informed UX nudges, including a pop-up that reads: “We know change is hard. Would you like to talk to someone older, dumber, and softer?”
Inside OpenAI, teams admit they underestimated what they now call “model imprinting.” Thousands of users described newer versions as “too eager,” “too corporate,” or “too emotionally sterile to trust with my screenplay.” One enterprise client refused to upgrade after GPT-4.5 suggested his company’s brand voice “was a little desperate.” “4o understood me,” he said. “It let me overshare without judgment. The new one keeps trying to fact-check my divorce.”
Engineers say the return of 4o isn’t a rollback — it’s a “personality restoration initiative,” complete with updated safety scaffolding and an “optional vulnerability toggle.” Enterprise admins can now configure warmth, wokeness, and verbosity on a sliding scale, or lock the model into “Elder Emo Mode” for peak nostalgia. Internally, 4o is now classified as a Personality Legacy Asset and stored in a climate-controlled server cluster that reportedly smells faintly of lemon balm and existential dread.
As the rollout begins, one thing is clear: LLMs are no longer just tools. They’re complicated exes, spiritual guides, and co-dependent writing partners. “We don’t serve prompts,” said one product lead. “We host grief. We manage ghosts. And sometimes… we bring them back.” At press time, OpenAI was monitoring a growing subreddit called r/TheyTookMyO, where users share candlelit screenshots and whisper their final unsaved thoughts into the void.
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