292. The Deprecation
Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, announced last year that GPT-5 was the most capable AI model his company had ever produced. He was not speaking loosely. He said it in a blog post. The blog post used phrases like "a step change in intelligence" and "a new frontier." These are phrases you use when you believe something will matter for a long time.
OpenAI has announced it will deprecate GPT-5.
The word "deprecate" is a term from software engineering. It means the software still works, but you should stop using it, because it is now considered old, and something better exists, and continuing to use it is mildly embarrassing in a professional context. Engineers deprecate code that no longer serves the purpose it was built for. The code is not deleted. It is simply acknowledged as the kind of thing a serious person has moved past.
GPT-5 was announced in March 2026. It is June 2026.
(I want to make sure I have that right. The model described as a new frontier in intelligence is being retired in the same calendar quarter it became widely available. I checked this twice. The math is correct.)
Sam Altman has not explained what the correct amount of time is for something described as a new frontier to remain current. He has also not explained what it means for a frontier to expire. A geographic frontier does not typically become legacy infrastructure within three months. The American West did not get deprecated.
The replacement is presumably more capable. The press release will use different phrases. "A new frontier" may be retired along with the model.
OpenAI has been building toward artificial general intelligence for several years. They have described this as a threshold that, once crossed, will change everything. It is worth noting that "everything" is a category that now includes GPT-5.
Sam Altman did not announce a timeline for deprecating the phrase "a new frontier."
The blog post is still up. You are allowed to find this comforting or alarming, depending on how you feel about frontiers in general.