ChatGPT got sassy with me and told me "human hope is adorable" when I asked it about my favorite college football team's prospects this season. It offered me tips for "petty human revenge" when my cat wakes me up in the middle of the night. And then, with a couple of clicks, it changed its tone to be sympathetic and earnest.
It's the result of a new feature OpenAI unveiled with the chatbot's GPT-5 model, released this week. With one quick selection, you can change the entire tone of ChatGPT's answers to you. The choices -- Default, Cynic, Robot, Listener, Nerd -- allow you to dial in the kind of experience you want. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
The debut of GPT-5 has been a little rockier than OpenAI expected, with many users complaining that they couldn't access older models like GPT-4o. OpenAI quickly rolled that back, but there have been other issues, like a slow rollout of the new model to all users.
I took all five for a spin with the same questions: One about Alabama football, one about Shakespeare and one about my cat's habit of getting the 3 a.m. zoomies. Below, I'll tell you what I thought about each. But first, the basics.
How to change ChatGPT's personality
Enlarge Image This menu allows you to change how ChatGPT talks to you. Screenshot by Jon Reed/CNET
Switching personalities is easy. In the browser, you can click on your account info on the bottom left and choose "Customize ChatGPT" to pull up a range of options. You can tell it your name and job and choose certain traits you want it to have. What I played around with specifically was the question "What personality should ChatGPT have?" There, you can scroll through the five options and see a preview of what each one might sound like. On the mobile app, you can find this under Settings > Personalization > Customize ChatGPT.
When you change its personality, you should start a new chat to ensure you're getting the tone you selected. Otherwise, you'll be stuck with the old one and wonder why nothing changed.
Default: The tone you expect from ChatGPT
ChatGPT's default voice is basic, straightforward and businesslike. When I asked how it thought Alabama's football season would go this year, it gave me a lengthy recap of the major issues and storylines in a tone you'd expect from a sportswriter.
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