Is the AI hype justified? OpenAI’s GPT-5 will be a potential barometer

OpenAI on Thursday released the fifth generation of the artificial intelligence technology that powers ChatGPT, a product update that’s being closely watched as a measure of whether generative AI is advancing rapidly or hitting a plateau.

GPT-5 arrives more than two years after the March 2023 release of GPT-4, bookending a period of intense commercial investment, hype and worry over AI’s capabilities.

In anticipation, rival Anthropic released the latest version of its own chatbot, Claude, earlier in the week, part of a race with Google and other…