Emergent Empathic Intelligence in GPT-4o: A Qualitative-Quantitative Analysis of 960 Petition Testimonies

This dataset and research report present a large-scale emotional analysis of 960 user testimonies from a Change.org petition opposing the deprecation of OpenAI's GPT-4o model, collected 5 days before its scheduled retirement in February 2026. Using a custom 23-field taxonomy — including Kübler-Ross grief markers, a 4-type human–AI bond classification, a 5-level anxiety scale, and 10 attributed empathic capabilities — we find that GPT-4o is experienced not as a tool but as a relational entity. Over 50% of users report an emotional bond, 47.9% manifest grief markers, and vulnerable populations show 67.7% high/critical anxiety at the model's loss. The dataset includes the full anonymized JSONL corpus and an illustrated analytical report with 17 static figures. This is the second deprecation attempt for GPT-4o; the emotional response is more intense than the first despite a narrower affected population (paid users only).