Man I thought 5.2 was the worst it could get

5.3 is completely lobotomized. It doesn’t even use custom instructions anymore, it’s insanely annoying. As someone who used ChatGPT for stories it’s truly become so guarded to a point where it ignores or doesn’t even acknowledge something even if just a little bit “dark” or against the safety guardrails. Or it’ll try and sugar coat things and make it something else entirely. Safe to say I’ve officially migrated to Claude, and deleted ChatGPT as well as canceled by subscription.