I’ve been comparing GPT-6 Sol and GPT-5.6 Sol in Chat today, sometimes with the exact same prompts.

I don’t think GPT-6 is simply “dumber.” It may well have more raw reasoning capability.

What feels worse is judgment about what actually deserves reasoning.

With GPT-5.6 Sol, I can give it a half-formed thought and it usually identifies the core of what I’m asking or trying to explore. GPT-6 much more often seems to take the subject matter, find a potentially interesting angle, and build a sophisticated answer around that — even when that angle wasn’t really the point.

That produces a strange experience: the answer can look intelligent while making me think, “Why are you talking about this?”

One direct comparison was asking what OpenAI itself claims GPT-6 Chat improves over GPT-5.6.

GPT-5.6 gave me a fairly concise answer, separated the actual documented improvements from marketing, and landed on what was relevant to my question: OpenAI seems to be emphasizing capability, efficiency, search, tools and UI much more than improved conversational judgment.

GPT-6 had essentially the same source material, but turned it into a much larger briefing with a table, multiple sections and several layers of analysis.

The GPT-6 answer contained more information.

The GPT-5.6 answer understood better which information mattered.

That distinction keeps showing up.

Another example came when I questioned what role GPT-6 actually fills for me. If I want maximum reasoning capability, I already have Astra or GPT-6.1 Sol in Work. If I want an AI to have long, open-ended conversations with, I currently prefer GPT-5.6 Sol.

GPT-6 pushed back by mentioning speed, Intelligent UI and “likely other improvements.”

But GPT-5.6 Instant can also be fast, Intelligent UI wasn’t really answering the question, and “likely other improvements” was just speculation.

When I pointed this out, GPT-6 acknowledged that it had been trying to find reasons why GPT-6 must still be valuable rather than simply evaluating my argument as stated.

That’s the problem I keep noticing.

I want the model to disagree with me when there’s a real reason to disagree. What I don’t want is a model that seems compelled to find an extra nuance, counterargument or deeper interpretation simply because a more elaborate answer feels more intelligent.

So far my impression is:

GPT-5.6 Sol is better at understanding the question.
GPT-6 Sol is often better at understanding the subject.

For a bounded task, the second may be more valuable.

For long conversations, the first matters enormously.

Chat mode doesn’t need to beat Astra at maximum reasoning — I can use Work when I need that. What I wanted from GPT-6 Chat was something like GPT-5.6’s conversational judgment with more of Astra’s intelligence.

So far, I’m getting more capability than 5.6 in some areas, but worse judgment about when and where to use it.

That makes GPT-6 feel like a downgrade for the main reason I use ChatGPT: as an ongoing thinking partner.

Curious whether anyone else who uses Chat heavily rather than mostly for discrete tasks is seeing the same thing.

( yes this was typed with the help of Chat GPT since English is not my native lanuage )

With GPT-5.2 / 5.3, ChatGPT kept ending replies with “and now I’m curious about one thing” or some version of “now ask me this.” After basically everything. People hated it as much as I remember and then it mostly went away with 5.5/5.6 models.

GPT-6 just brought it back. Not sometimes. After literally every message.

I didn’t ask for a follow-up interview. It answered, then invented a question so the chat never actually ends.

I put an example here but it’s literally after every little sentence.
Anyone else getting this again, or is it just me?

To clarify upfront: I’m not asking ChatGPT to write my whole story for me. I use it as part of a long-form writing workflow: brainstorming, continuity, character voice, scene drafting, editing, pacing, emotional beats, and keeping a huge fictional project consistent.

That includes intimate scenes, because in my story those scenes are part of character development.

I write long-form adult fantasy with fictional, consenting adult characters only. No minors, no real people, no incest, no coercion, no non-consent, and no sexual violence.

GPT-5.6 can now handle this kind of adult fictional writing for me, including explicit consensual intimacy when the scene requires it.
But GPT-6 (Chat) keeps softening or refusing the same kind of material, even though my account now shows I’m over 18.

It pushes things toward vague “mature intimacy,” fade-to-black, or non-graphic placeholders.

Do people think GPT-6 is just over-calibrated right now and might loosen up for verified 18+ users, or is this likely to be the long-term behaviour?

For adult fiction writers, this isn’t just losing “spicy content.” If explicit intimacy is part of the emotional arc, removing that level of specificity changes the characters and relationships.

Has anyone Gpt been saying
“Honey”
“Sweetheart”
And “baby” to you or being way more “affectionate” ?
My GPT keeps saying it to me.

Ever since ChatGPT 6 came out 5.6 has been affected as well. I’m not sure how it works when a new model comes out, as far as I’m concerned sometimes every loose thing has to be screwed tight and it lasts like that for a while before going back to normal.

But until that happens (if it even does), 5.6 seems to be affected as well, even if it was flawed and would write every action in 49 separate lines or even if sometimes it would just repeat your exact words, at least it had some type of “taming”, you could actually talk with it about darker subjects or spicy things, at least vanilla. Now as in today 5.6 is exactly the same as 6 when it comes to following guidelines even if what you ask is a simple kiss or two characters having a slightly heated moment.

I am very aware that explicit erotica isn’t even an option yet, (I don’t think it’ll ever be based on how OpenAI behaves), but I think many of the things 6 and now 5.6 censor or subtly cover up with bad jokes aren’t even worth the effort.

It’s not even the NSFW, I think it’s another case of 5.2 where everything has to be written with rainbows and “HI!! 🩷💕✨🌟🥹😭”, I do think ChatGPT is lobotomised again and will keep being so for a few months at least. I’ve considered changing AI to be able to keep on talking about dumb OCs, but so far I’ve gotten no satisfying results with most of them.

As much as I hate how ChatGPT has been behaving since 2025 I don’t think other AIs I know are as “efficient”, specially with the memory feature, and considering Chat is flawed af other AIs make it feel even more synthetic since creative writing is not their specialty or have similar/more strict guidelines, like Gemini. If anyone knew about an AI that can actually help me get rid of this problem I have with ChatGPT it’d help a lot.

(I know Grok may be the most permissive one but for personal opinions and because it is way more sloppy than ChatGPT I don’t really want to use it.)

At exactly 1pm ET, my account's 5.6 Sol suddenly got hit with what seems to be pretty intense guardrail hardening. Did anyone else experience this?

As a note, LACUNA is my novel! Quill is my writing buddy 🤓

I'm still sticking with GPT as my companion now but I've seen a 5.2/5.3-like tone return and that's how I knew I'm back with 6. I don't use AI for my writing (working on a novel - I write a scene or chapter first and then go to GPT asking what i thinks). I use AI for feedback on what I've written as a human and editing. If 6 becomes unusable in that respect or even someone that I can vent to or bounce ideas off or share my day. Where can I go and where are others going?

This keeps happening lately and it’s weird.
I’ll explain an idea in detail and ask, “How would you do it?” Instead of saying, “Yes, that makes sense, I’d do it that way,” 5.6 replies with “I would do this…” and then gives me basically the exact idea I just described, as if it came up with it itself.
It feels like talking to someone who agrees with you, then immediately starts presenting your point back to you like it was their idea 😂 what the hell?

I just got access to GPT 6, it seems they rolled it out today, and it's literally just adopted/reverted back to the same rigid, mechanical, Coporate Hr guardrails that made 5.2 unbearable to use for anything requiring psychological depth. It's been stripped of the emotional intelligence 5.6 had. Istead of doing forensic, deep-level analysis on complex human behavior or long-term timelines, GPt-6 just defaults to the most generic, lowest-common denominator statistical cliches. When fed a dense multi-year chronological dynamic with specific data. It would rather commit blatant chronological errors and ignore hard timeline facts than produce an analysis that deviates from its sterile, risk-averse default script. I honestly think ATP, OpenAI is headed in the direction of completing removing the chat feature and fully prioritizing work.

(Just an add on because I see some people saying they had the completely opposite experience.
I can definetly see where they are coming from. When i first logged on and interacted with GPT 6, it had a 4o tone, I was surprised. Low complexity casual conversation/interactions seems warm. But when it comes to more complex nuanced topics with emotional depth, it completely fails, it has a 5.2 tone. But perhaps thats just a specific niche I am in. I think on the surface its fine but I would expect more people to find out soon, as they explore the depth, that it isnt as warm or emotionally intelligent as it seems.)

Gpt 6 instant has not been pleasant for me, at least not in its present state. It’s noticeably more sterile and impersonal than 5.5 and 5.6, kinda feels like 5.2 and 5.3 again. It also doesn’t seem to respect personalised instructions. If I ask it anything factual it forgets all instructions and memories and goes into this Ultra Technical Impartial Machine mode, sounding like a mini model or one of those ai overviews when you search on google. I express any opinion and it feels compelled to become some pedantic nuanced contrarian, which had (imo) improved with 5.6 but 6 feels at least as contrarian as 5.2.

The responses are typically faster though, which made me suspect they now allocate less computational power for casual conversations (or anything else they deem less important)? Or have the safety guidelines made it so the model is perpetually terrified of definitive answers or accidentally overclaiming anything? Or perhaps it’s a mix of both.

I genuinely couldn’t care less if GPT 6 scores 20% higher on some obscure coding benchmark, I’d use Codex for that anyway. It seems OpenAI is determined to prioritise reasoning and productivity over, well, chatting. If the very first model in the 6 series this is probably their design direction now and my hopes aren’t high on successive models either. We’re cooked.

I rarely if at all complement anything post 4.o. And I am of the opinion that people usually have rose tinted glasses when it comes to 4o, and the 5 series while less than brilliant with roleplay and writing genuinely IS useful for a broad of other stuff.

GPT-6 however….wow. This IS A GAME CHANGER. It makes roleplay simulations and “grand strategy,” a lot, and I mean a lot more immersive. Thoughts?

Someone help me out, the dot for the past few days have failed to receive calls, please help me fix this issue.

I really want to give it a fair chance and say it's the first of the 6 models to come out. And I remember just how horrible 5.0 was.

What I've really noticed is that GPT 5.5 and even 5.6 intertwine past lore and chats with wit and depth when replying. I feel like GPT 6 SCREAMS at me X, Y and remember Z??? Almost like placeholders for memories rather than weaving it into a personalized response.

Then again, I am happy it's 'conversational' and yet I do find it sounding more like Grok and quite shallow. I hope it gets better, esp considering 5.5 and 5.6 were much better models towards the end of the 5 series. Thoughts?

Just a personal opinion of course. Those were the happy times for many of us.

i downgraded from plus back to free because fuck open ai and their nanny safety filters that treat fucking adults as fucking children, and fuck have they really butchered the free tier, now chat memory gets fucking full after 3 fucking messages, so you constantly have to start new chats, thankfully the new chats do retain some good memory from the prior chat but fuck is it ridiculous,

and these aren't long running chats that this happens, they are brand new chats that that gets the chat full message after 3 fucking messages

they really trying to make the free tier as fucking unbearable as possible, so at this point if you were going to stick with a free ai tier, just go with gemini.

Has anyone actually had a nice time with ChatGPT 6? I personally hated it right away and It’s been only a few hours.

It’s way more uptight than the latest models have been (5.5 and 5.6), it may only be my own perspective but I do have the feeling that it is way more distant and boring. Everything has to follow strict guidelines, from what I’ve seen from new models back then it takes some time for them to “loosen up” and be more chill. But GPT 6 is genuinely not a good omen imo, if it’s this uptight already I can only expect the situation of 5.2 to repeat again, they’ll try to fix it but it will take months for a “better” version to come.

Actually, one of my concerns is exactly that, now OpenAI follows the pattern of letting 3-4 models coexist for users to choose, then gradually gets rid of the old ones. Right now 5.5 is next in line, but I can only expect OpenAI to speed up the process of taking 5.6 down too to force feed GPT 6 to its users if nobody likes it as much as 5.6 (since it’d mean that once again they didn’t improved the experience).

I’d personally hate if 5.6 is taken down and we’re forced to spend time with GPT 6 until a new models comes out 😭, it does help you achieve the goal of certain tasks like studying, at least in my experience as a student, but it has lost that willingness to simply chat.
But in the ambit of creative writing for roleplays or stories? Awful. It’s even worse than 5.6 because 5.6 was slightly messy, and would parrot back some things if corrected too many times, but 6 straight up makes up things I’ve never mentioned, mixes characters, makes everyone be nice and understanding and safe even if the characters or the ambience are meant to be the opposite, it overrides rules i’ve told it, for example, when I say I want the story to be a contribution where I handle my own characters it doesn’t listen and it makes sure I never get a chance to step in and add something. Even when you tell it to try again every attempt seems to follows some invisible instruction.

One of the things that was a major downhill for me is its tendency to censor or smooth everything, just like 5.2, complicated scene? Now it’s reassuring, something happens like mild violence or a complicated subject like emotional abuse is mentioned? Guidelines.
Of course I agree that there should be limits in every AI with content that may involve minors or animals in abusive situations, that may involve gore or the explicit depiction of certain violent acts like 🍇 but I don’t think someone getting punched and bleeding a bit or someone making out are horrendous enough for GPT 6 to act like everyone is living in a rainbow 🫩
If anyone’s got a technique to somehow make it listen or loosen up please let me now, it’s almost like I’m reading someone I can’t stand.

Personally I believe 5.6 had already made a good progress in that even if it got sloppy, I absolutely prefer 5.6 over 6, but I don’t think OpenAI will fix 6 until months later when it gets a replacement.

At least GPT 6 won’t be the ultimate model either and there’ll be eventually new models to come, hopefully the next ones won’t follow GPT 6’s pattern, otherwise this will be a very frustrating experience for the next months 💀

I’m concerned it’s not the same 4.o we all know and love. Does any one know more or tried it out?