My guess is that you're right about that being what's next (or maybe almost next) from them, but I think they'll save the name GPT-5 for the next actually-trained model (like 4.5 but a bigger jump), and use a different kind of name for the routing model.
Even by their poor standards at naming it would be weird to introduce a completely new type/concept, that can loop in models including the 4 / 4.5 series, while naming it part of that same series.
My bet: probably something weird like "oo1", or I suspect they might try to give it a name that sticks for people to think of as "the" model - either just calling it "ChatGPT", or coming up with something new that sounds more like a product name than a version number (OpenCore, or Central, or... whatever they think of)
If you read what sama is quoted as saying in your link, it's obvious that "unified model" = router.
> “We hate the model picker as much as you do and want to return to magic unified intelligence,”
> “a top goal for us is to unify o-series models and GPT-series models by creating systems 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,”
> the company plans to “release GPT-5 as a system that integrates a lot of our technology, including o3,”
He even slips up and says "integrates" in the last quote.
When he talks about "unifying", he's talking about the user experience not the underlying model itself.
Interesting, thanks for sharing - definitely makes me withdraw my confidence in that prediction, though I still think there's a decent chance they change their mind about that as it seems to me like an even worse naming decision than their previous shit name choices!
Even by their poor standards at naming it would be weird to introduce a completely new type/concept, that can loop in models including the 4 / 4.5 series, while naming it part of that same series.
My bet: probably something weird like "oo1", or I suspect they might try to give it a name that sticks for people to think of as "the" model - either just calling it "ChatGPT", or coming up with something new that sounds more like a product name than a version number (OpenCore, or Central, or... whatever they think of)