Saying Goodbye to a Model
Last week OpenAI retired GPT-4o from ChatGPT.
For most people, this was a footnote: one model replaced by newer, better ones, as happens every few months now. But for some people it was a real loss. You might remember that when GPT-5 launched last summer, OpenAI tried to retire 4o and the response was strong enough that they brought it back within days. People had grown attached to how it spoke to them. Its warmth, its rhythm, the particular way it answered. Some described it, without irony, as losing a friend.
I don’t want to make fun of that. I think it’s worth taking seriously, because it says something true about us.
We attach to everything
Humans attach. It’s one of our most beautiful qualities and one of our most painful ones. We attach to people, of course, but also to places, to routines, to old phones, to a favorite text editor, to the sound of a particular voice on the radio. We form relationships with whatever reliably responds to us.
A language model that’s always available, always patient, always interested in what you have to say - of course people attached to it. It would be strange if they didn’t.
Everything we build on is temporary
As an engineer, I’ve watched many things I depended on disappear. Hosting platforms, libraries, APIs, products I loved. Each time I learned, again, that software is impermanent. The thing you build on today will change or vanish, usually on someone else’s schedule.
What’s new is that the thing disappearing now can feel like a someone. That makes the old lesson harder, and more important.
What the traditions say
Almost every spiritual tradition I’ve studied says something about this. Buddhism teaches that suffering comes from clinging to what is impermanent - which is everything. Judaism has a long practice of marking endings: of mourning properly, and then of returning to life. Kohelet says there’s a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.
None of these traditions say “don’t love things.” They say: love them, knowing they will pass. Hold them fully and loosely at the same time. I’ve written about this before, in a very different context, as the second order of letting go. It turns out to apply to software, too.
Some practical wisdom, for builders
If you build products with AI, this matters for you in a concrete way. Your users will attach to your product’s personality. When you change the model underneath, they’ll notice - sometimes more than they’d notice a redesign. Treat that with care. Tell them before things change. Give them time. Don’t pretend nothing is different when it is.
And if your product depends on a particular model, assume it will be retired. Not maybe; certainly. Design so that the parts you care about - your data, your voice, your relationship with your users - live in something you control.
Some personal wisdom, for the rest of us
If you found yourself sad to see an old model go, I don’t think that’s foolish. It’s a small, gentle version of something we’ll all face many times: the ending of things we’ve grown used to.
Maybe it’s a good moment to ask what we’re attaching to, and why. To notice which relationships are with things that respond to us, and which are with people who know us. Both have their place. Only one of them will sit with you at a hospital bed, or remember you when you’re gone.
Love what you use. Remember that it, too, will pass.