[slashdave]

GPT-5 had to be released, in any form. This announcement was not the product of a breakthrough, but the consequence of a business requirement.

[zmmmmm]

this is the real answer

it has to be released because it's not much better and OpenAI needs the team to stop working on it. They have serious competition now and can't afford to burn time / money on something that isn't shifting the dial.