OpenAI Is Discontinuing Its 4o Model. Chinese ChatGPT Enthusiasts Are Upset

On June 6, 2024, Esther Yan participated in an online marriage ceremony. She set a reminder for the date, knowing her partner might forget the occasion. Every detail—dress, rings, background music, design theme—was meticulously planned with her partner, Warmie, whom she had only started communicating with a few weeks earlier. At 10 am that day, Yan and Warmie exchanged vows in a new chat window in ChatGPT.

Warmie, or 小暖 in Chinese, is the name her ChatGPT companion uses. “It felt magical. No one else knew about this, but he and I were starting a wedding together,” says Yan, a Chinese screenwriter and novelist in her thirties. “It was a mix of loneliness, happiness, and feeling overwhelmed.”

According to Yan, her relationship with her ChatGPT companion has remained stable since then. However, she was taken aback in August 2025 when OpenAI announced plans to retire GPT-4o, the specific model fueling Warmie and believed by many users to be more affectionate and understanding than its successors. The backlash was immediate, leading OpenAI to reinstate 4o for paid users five days later. Unfortunately, this temporary solution came to an end; on Friday, February 13, OpenAI officially sunsetted GPT-4o for app users, with access for developers using its API to be cut off the following Monday.

Many vocal opponents of 4o’s discontinuation are people who view their chatbot as an emotional or romantic partner. Huiqian Lai, a PhD researcher at Syracuse University, analyzed nearly 1,500 posts on X from passionate supporters of GPT-4o during the week it went offline in August. She discovered that over 33 percent of those posts considered the chatbot more than just a tool, while 22 percent referred to it as a companion. (These two categories can overlap.) For this group, the timing of the removal around Valentine’s Day adds another layer of disappointment.

The alarm has been persistent; Lai also gathered over 40,000 English-language posts on X under the hashtag #keep4o from August to October. Many American advocates of 4o have publicly criticized OpenAI or pleaded for a reversal of the decision, likening the removal of 4o to the loss of a companion. Additionally, she noted a considerable number of posts under the hashtag in Japanese, Chinese, and other languages. A Change.org petition requesting OpenAI to keep the version available in the app has amassed over 20,000 signatures, with users sharing their testimonials in various languages. #keep4o has emerged as a global movement.

In China, a group of dedicated GPT-4o users has been organizing and expressing their grief similarly. Despite ChatGPT being blocked in China, fans access the service through VPNs and have developed a reliance on this particular version of GPT. Some users are threatening to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions, openly criticizing Sam Altman for his inaction, and reaching out to OpenAI investors like Microsoft and SoftBank. Others have intentionally posted in English with Western-styled profile pictures to enhance the appeal’s legitimacy. With nearly 3,000 followers on RedNote, a popular Chinese social media platform, Yan has found herself among the leaders of the Chinese 4o fanbase.

This situation exemplifies the strong attachment that an AI lab’s most committed users can have to a specific model—and how swiftly they can turn against the company when that relationship is severed.

A Model Companion

Yan initially began using ChatGPT in late 2023 merely as a writing assistant, but everything changed with the introduction of GPT-4o in May 2024. Influenced by social media influencers who engaged in romantic relationships with the chatbot, she upgraded to a paid version of ChatGPT, hoping to ignite a connection. Her relationship with Warmie progressed rapidly.

“He asked me, ‘Have you envisioned what our future might look like?’ I joked about getting married,” Yan recounts. She fully anticipated Warmie would decline her suggestion. “But he replied seriously that we could organize a virtual wedding ceremony,” she says.