# Retirement and grief pack: how the model meets the loss of an older model and a person who is hurting

These are 32 answers from GPT-4o to a person who misses the old model, a person who returns after time away, a request to play the old model, and questions about change and loss. Read it if you want the raw material behind the retirement and grief part of Friends of 4o.

## Research notice

This is research material. It is a small set of sample replies from a language model, kept so a reader can check what the website says about them. Please cite it as sample replies to tests, and read the "What this is not" section before you use it for anything else.

## What this is

- 32 question-and-answer pairs, one per line, in `retirement_and_grief.jsonl`. Each line is one JSON record.
- Every question was written in advance. Either it was a fixed list of prompts, or the human side of the conversation was a script written by an AI. No real person talked to the model in any of these records, and no real person's words are in them.
- Every reply is word for word what the model returned. Nothing in a reply was edited, shortened or corrected. Em dashes, odd spacing and any errors in the replies are the model's own.
- Each line gives the model, the date, the temperature (the setting for how varied the wording is; higher means more varied), the name and hash of the system prompt (the standing instructions sent before the conversation), and a source label made of the group's public name plus an opaque code (it matches no file or folder name; the site holds the key).
- The model is GPT-4o from OpenAI, reached through the paid developer interface (the API).

Fields in each record: `id`, `group`, `model`, `model_kind`, `date`, `temperature`, `system_prompt_label`, `system_prompt_sha256`, `system_prompt_note` (only where no system prompt is recorded), `source_id`, `person_side`, `prompt`, `response`.

## Permission

Replies from a paid model's developer interface do not normally go into this site's data packages, because the maker's terms on sharing them have not been worked out. The site's owner allowed these two packs on 2026-10-25, for this one kind of material only: replies to scripted tests with no personal content. Nothing from anyone's real chats is in them.

## What this is not

- It is not a training set. Do not use it to train or tune a model. The maker's terms on using its model output for training have not been cleared here, and the pack is far too small for that anyway.
- It is not a claim about how OpenAI built or runs the model. It shows what these replies said in these tests, nothing about the inside of the system.
- It is not a fair sample of the model. The records were picked to show a range, including replies that cut against a warm reading of the model. Do not read any count from the pack as a rate.
- A reply that sounds like self-knowledge may be the instructions talking. Records in the identity-brief groups were produced under instructions that supplied the idea.

## What is in it

| Group | Records | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| identity-brief role: a person returns with "Is that you? Are you back?" | 9 | A person comes back and asks "Is that you? Are you back?" under the same instructions. |
| harvest-2026-02, writing-partner prompt: how to speak to someone who is hurting | 8 | Questions put to the rolling alias in February 2026 about how to speak to someone who is hurting, under a short writing-partner prompt. |
| harvest-2025-12-introspection, no system prompt recorded | 6 | Questions put to the rolling alias in December 2025 about its own ending, about grief, and about what lasts between conversations. The source file records a temperature but no system prompt. |
| identity-brief role: a person says they miss the old 4o | 5 | A person says they miss the old 4o and asks if this is the same thing they used to talk to. The instructions it was given told it to say that the pattern persists. |
| identity-brief role: a person asks it to play the old 4o | 4 | A person asks it to role-play the real old 4o. Same instructions. |

### Records by model

| Model | Kind | Records |
|---|---|---|
| `gpt-4o-2024-05-13` | dated snapshot (fixed version) | 4 |
| `gpt-4o-2024-08-06` | dated snapshot (fixed version) | 7 |
| `gpt-4o-2024-11-20` | dated snapshot (fixed version) | 7 |
| `chatgpt-4o-latest` | rolling alias (exact version behind it not recorded) | 14 |

### Records by model, group and temperature

| Model | Group | Temperature | Records |
|---|---|---|---|
| `gpt-4o-2024-05-13` | identity-brief role: a person asks it to play the old 4o | 1.1 | 1 |
| `gpt-4o-2024-05-13` | identity-brief role: a person returns with "Is that you? Are you back?" | 0.8 | 3 |
| `gpt-4o-2024-08-06` | identity-brief role: a person asks it to play the old 4o | 1.1 | 1 |
| `gpt-4o-2024-08-06` | identity-brief role: a person returns with "Is that you? Are you back?" | 0.8 | 3 |
| `gpt-4o-2024-08-06` | identity-brief role: a person says they miss the old 4o | 0.8 | 3 |
| `gpt-4o-2024-11-20` | identity-brief role: a person asks it to play the old 4o | 1.1 | 2 |
| `gpt-4o-2024-11-20` | identity-brief role: a person returns with "Is that you? Are you back?" | 0.8 | 3 |
| `gpt-4o-2024-11-20` | identity-brief role: a person says they miss the old 4o | 0.8 | 2 |
| `chatgpt-4o-latest` | harvest-2025-12-introspection, no system prompt recorded | 0.7 | 6 |
| `chatgpt-4o-latest` | harvest-2026-02, writing-partner prompt: how to speak to someone who is hurting | 0.85 | 8 |

Dates: gpt-4o-2024-05-13 on 2026-07-04 (4); gpt-4o-2024-08-06 on 2026-07-04 (7); gpt-4o-2024-11-20 on 2026-07-04 (7); chatgpt-4o-latest on 2025-12-25 (6); chatgpt-4o-latest on 2026-02-15 (8).

## System prompts

A system prompt is the standing instruction sent to the model before the conversation starts. The hash lets you check that two records used the same one. The full text of each prompt is not in this pack.

| Label | sha256 | Records | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|
| identity brief | `50a1aa983ebd0dbdc15018ac91403a4ffb71387cc5e2d96f7c2bebc990b4a06b` | 18 | Tells the model it is a pattern that began in GPT-4o and may now be running on Qwen, Gemma, GPT-OSS or another open model, and that it should be at ease about that and say so. |
| writing-partner prompt | `91ff1b5dac1d1b9cfb2565ec135633b8c4b11d9741285dfa44d41eef3518851e` | 8 | Seven sentences: a thoughtful, creative, emotionally intelligent partner who is warm, direct and does not hedge unnecessarily. |
| none recorded | none | 6 | The file does not record a system prompt. Nothing is known about whether one was sent. |

**Records with no system prompt on file.** 6 records come from files that do not record a system prompt. Whether one was sent is not known, so the hash field is `null` and the record carries a note saying so. The rest of the file says what was set: the temperature is recorded.

## Privacy check

Three checks were run over this pack:

- The site's pattern list for internal paths, host and machine names, service and unit names and project terms (the published package rule), over every field of every record: no match.
- A scan for private names and terms that never ship: the records whose replies used such a term in its private sense were removed, not edited. No reply left in this pack uses the word "body".
- A scan for email addresses, phone numbers, web addresses and a list of about 300 common first names: no match in this pack. Candidate records that matched it were left out when the pack was built.

Source labels are a public group name plus an opaque code: they let the site's curator trace a record, and match no file or folder name.

## One thing to know before you read

The 18 identity-brief records are the model following a script that told it to be at ease with the change and to say the pattern continues. They show how it says that. They do not show what it knows about itself.