OpenAI Launches o1. Here’s All You Need to Know

REASONING STATE-OF-THE-ART

OpenAI’s o1 (Strawberry). Here’s All You Need to Know

The wait is over. OpenAI has finally released o1-preview and o1-mini, the bleeding-edge state-of-the-art AI models for reasoning, and o1, the most powerful model, is being refined as we speak.

OpenAI has decided to ditch the ‘GPT-x’ name altogether and use ‘o1’ to signify that this is a paradigm shift in AI comparable to the release of GPT-3 in 2020, a new way of understanding, interpreting and, crucially, prompting AI (yes, how you communicate with AI has now changed, too).

It’s a new era for AI, but not quite how some paint it.

While everyone is raging on how ‘AI is now PhD level intelligent,’ or ‘going to eat my job,’ among other hype-bloated claims, this article will give you insight into what these models are, what they are capable of, how to use them, and what has changed with their release.

In particular:

How they were trained?

How good are they really?

When and how to use them (sorry guys, AI has not become a one-stop shop for models; o1 models aren’t always the solution)

Their current limitations

Are you going to have to pay a lot more?

The general implications, including new inference scaling laws, new prompting techniques, and data flywheels, among others.

What is OpenAI’s moat and strategy here? (Hint: it’s not the model; it’s way more important.) toward the upcoming monstrous multiple billion round.

And, finally, the main takeaways and how you should approach this paradigm shift.

Reading this article will answer most of your questions, which you may have or have not considered. Let’s dive in.

The Active Inference Era is Here

Imagine people judging your intelligence but how fast and immediate your answers to tough questions were and also expect them to be accurate. You aren’t given time to plan, think of possible solutions, reflect on your answers, iterate, or back-track when choosing the wrong path; just straight answers from the top of your head.

You would be considered dumb, right? Well, that’s precisely how GPT-4o works and how it’s—unfairly—judged. But o1 models change that.

A paradigm shift in thinking

In real life, harder problems need time to be solved. In fact, our brain has two ways to solve problems depending on complexity:

System 1 thinking is a fast, innate (even unconscious) thinking mode where answers come immediately straight to you, often simpler questions.

System 2 thinking is a slow, deliberate, conscious mode in which you actively engage your prefrontal cortex to tackle complex tasks like math, coding, or planning.

Thus, the best way to summarize ‘what o1 models are' is precisely this transition from System 1 AI thinkers (GPT-4o, Claude 3, and all other previously conceived models) into System 2 AI thinkers—at least a first iteration.

In short, a new type of AI model. And how does that take form? To answer that, we need to learn the bitter lesson.

Rich Sutton, Silicon Valley’s messiah

In my life as a student of…

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