Op-Ed: GPT-5’s arrival may mark a level up in bringing humanity down

Altman said that instead of a standalone release, o3 would be included as part of GPT-5, creating a model “that can use all our tools, know when to think for a long time or not, and generally be useful for a very wide range of tasks”. However, o3 and o4-mini were released in April after Altman delayed GPT-5 for a few months.

OpenAI then teased a release for early August, which this time, it met.

“GPT‑5 is a significant leap in intelligence over all our previous models, featuring state-of-the-art performance across coding, math, writing, health, visual perception, and more. It is a unified system that knows when to respond quickly and when to think longer to provide expert-level responses,” OpenAI wrote in its announcement.

OpenAI said the new model is its most advanced model when it comes to coding, health, creative expression and writing, academic evaluations and more, all while achieving results faster.

A threat to creatives with a fancy bow

The development of more advanced, easier-to-access and use AI, while boasting incredible capabilities, furthers the threat to jobs across the board, and creatives have the largest target on their head.

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The team at Cyber Daily’s publisher, Momentum Media, trialled GPT-5’s coding capabilities by asking it to create a faithful duplicate of the Flappy Bird mobile game.

In a single prompt, the AI was able to create a faithful rendition of the game, complete with accurate graphics and gameplay.

Additional prompts refined the product, and eventually, the AI had enhanced the game’s graphics and gameplay, with moving obstacles and extra background detail.

As impressive as this is with a few minutes of work, it presents a very real risk to game developers and computer scientists who code for a living.

What’s more, indie game developers and even large studios could lose serious revenue due to a decreased interest in paying for a product. Why pay for a game when they can have an AI make something similar?

The threat doesn’t end there. The new model’s ability to creative write is a massive challenge for authors, ghost writers, and other creatives, particularly freelance workers.

In one scenario, a creative writer (or other creative) on a freelance platform may end up losing work because another person is using AI to generate it, without disclosing the AI. The potential customer may also just look to using AI instead of paying a creative. And for those who aren’t interested in AI work, the closing gap between human work and AI means that real, hardworking creatives may be accused of using AI, causing their reputation and means of making a living to crumble.

Then there is the issue of copyright. Already, the UK and the US have introduced legislative changes that could allow AI developers and tech giants to bypass copyright for the purpose of training their models, despite major resistance from iconic creatives.

In these scenarios, not only are these creatives not paid for the training, but they aren’t even notified.

So when creations are made using AI that replicate their work, there is direct theft of their ideas and works being done at an even greater level to training.

What’s more is that in Australia and the US, as well as around the world, AI-generated content cannot be copyrighted, as it’s a “human contributor who would own copyright if a work was protected”, according to the Arts Law Centre of Australia.

Yet even without that copyright, there is a potential for AI users to profit off of the work of real creatives, without their knowledge or them being compensated.

Opinion: Is OpenAI feeling the pull of the dark side?

In the hours prior to the release of GPT-5, Altman teased its arrival with an image of the Death Star, which, for those unaware, is a superweapon developed by the Empire (the bad guys) in Star Wars, capable of destroying planets.

pic.twitter.com/1u0MOGvJWU

— Sam Altman (@sama) August 7, 2025

While it seems this suggested that Altman was saying GPT-5 would destroy other AI, it seems to be connecting him to the Empire, or even suggesting he is Darth Vader.

Weirdly, this isn’t the first time this connection has been made. US President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of him wielding a red lightsaber, saying that the “radical left” were “not the Rebellion” but “the Empire,” despite the irony that he was wielding a red blade, which typically marks being Sith (once again, the bad guys in Star Wars).

In context of OpenAI and Altman, the irony only gets greater with the Death Star’s capability to destroy planets, something that major AI operations seem to be doing a good job of here on Earth with their massive energy requirements and need for data centres.

According to Sustainability By Numbers, a single ChatGPT query uses roughly 10 times the energy as a Google Search. Business Energy UK also found in February that ChatGPT may “presently use around 39.98 million kwh per day – enough to charge 8 million phones”.

OpenAI itself said that GPT-4o uses 0.34Wh of electricity and 0.000085 gallons of water per prompt. The energy level is similar to using an oven for just over a second.

OpenAI, like the rest of the AI giants, is also building more data centres for more computing capacity, having announced earlier this year an “additional 4.5 GW of data centre capacity.

These data centres place great strain on water supplies and energy grids and create large amounts of pollution. xAI’s data centre in Memphis has caused major controversy for spewing pollution from its gas turbines, leading to community residents raising the issue with the health department.

So with its supreme ability to do damage to the planet, it’s safe to say that Altman is Darth Vader, and GPT-5 is his new planet-killing Death Star.