OpenAI launches AI models with ‘reasoning’ abilities

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has released new artificial intelligence (AI) models internally dubbed as “Strawberry”, designed to think before responding to prompts and solve complex problems.

Known as o1 and o1-mini, the “Strawberry” models can reason through intricate tasks and tackle more challenging problems in science, coding, and mathematics than previous models, according to OpenAI.

“We trained these models to spend more time thinking through problems before they respond, much like a person would. Through training, they learn to refine their thinking process, try different strategies, and recognize their mistakes,” OpenAI said in a blog post.

In testing, the new model performed comparably to PhD students on challenging benchmark tasks in physics, chemistry, and biology. “We also found that it excels in math and coding,” the company added.

While still an early model, it lacks some features that make ChatGPT useful, such as browsing the web for information and uploading files and images.

“But for complex reasoning tasks, this is a significant advancement and represents a new level of AI capability. Given this, we are resetting the counter back to 1 and naming this series OpenAI o1,” the company said.

Who will it help?

OpenAI said o1 can be used by healthcare researchers to annotate cell sequencing data, by physicists to generate complex mathematical formulas needed for quantum optics, and by developers in all fields to build and execute multi-step workflows.

The AI firm is releasing the model in preview mode to gauge user interactions, and identify areas of improvement, Noam Brown, a research scientist at OpenAI, said in a series of posts on X.

https://x.com/polynoamial/status/1834280155730043108

The o1 series excels at accurately generating and debugging complex code. To offer a more efficient solution for developers, OpenAI is releasing o1-mini, a faster, cheaper reasoning model particularly effective at coding. As a smaller model, o1-mini is 80% cheaper than o1-preview, making it a powerful, cost-effective option for applications that require reasoning but not extensive world knowledge.

ChatGPT Plus and Team users will be able to access o1 models in ChatGPT starting Friday, 13 September. Both o1-preview and o1-mini can be selected manually in the model picker at launch.

OpenAI has set usage limits at 30 messages weekly for o1-preview and 50 for o1-mini. “We are working to increase those rates and enable ChatGPT to automatically choose the right model for a given prompt,” OpenAI said, adding that ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu users will get access to both the models beginning next week.

“We also are planning to bring o1-mini access to all ChatGPT Free users,” ApoenAI said, adding that it expects to soon add browsing, file and image uploading, and other features to make them more useful to everyone.