OpenAI just unveiled o1, kicking off a new series of "reasoning" models designed to tackle complex questions faster than we can. They've also launched o1-mini, a smaller and more budget-friendly version. And yes, if you've been following AI buzz, this is the much-hyped Strawberry model everyone's been talking about.
This release is a big step toward OpenAI's goal of human-like artificial intelligence. Simply put, o1 outperforms previous models in writing code and solving tricky problems. But here's the catch: it's pricier and a bit slower than GPT-4o, so OpenAI is calling it a "preview" to highlight that it's still in the early days.
What's really interesting is how o1 was trained. Instead of just mimicking patterns from data, it uses reinforcement learning—learning through rewards and penalties—to figure things out on its own. It thinks in a "chain of thought," much like we do when solving problems step by step. OpenAI says it's more accurate and hallucinates less, though it's not perfect yet. This also makes for some great memes.
The standout feature? o1 tackles complex tasks like coding and math while explaining its reasoning. Ideally, this should make it more accurate. While I was playing around with the model this morning, I did notice a lot fewer hallucinations. It's a promising leap forward in AI, even if it's still ironing out some wrinkles and comes with a heftier price tag.
