OpenAI is currently hosting "12 days of announcements" that started on December 5th. The company promises to unveil new products and innovations for its flagship product, ChatGPT.
On the first day, OpenAI fully launched its ChatGPT o1 model, the full version of o1-preview, which was released in a limited version back in September. The new model is available for ChatGPT Plus, Teams, Enterprise, and Edu users. It’s not available on ChatGPT’s free version.
OpenAI also announced a new ChatGPT Pro tier that costs $200 a month. This plan unlocks access to o1 Pro mode, an advanced version of the o1 model that utilizes more computing resources. The o1 pro mode lets ChatGPT users request more computing power to provide accurate answers to their queries.
But what is o1 Pro? How is it different from the previous ChatGPT models?
Let's take a look.
What is ChatGPT o1?
o1 is the latest version of the ChatGPT large language model (LLM). OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims it’s the "smartest model in the world." This model was trained on a larger dataset and uses more computing power for inference.
The o1 model is already live for ChatGPT users, and noticeable improvements have been made. It's smarter and more capable of answering complex questions, and it can analyze images much better than previous ChatGPT models.
Users can upload pictures and have ChatGPT respond to the picture details, unlike previous versions, which were limited to describing, identifying objects, providing feedback, and searching for things in uploaded images.
For now, users have observed a surprising drawback: the inability to upload PDF, DOC, XLS, and other text files for ChatGPT to analyze. OpenAI has clarified that the document upload feature isn't yet done, making it unavailable. However, it'll definitely be added later to the o1 model.
OpenAI hasn’t yet released the API for the o1 model. It says the API will arrive soon, enabling developers to integrate the o1 model into external apps and websites.
What's new in the ChatGPT o1 model?
The o1 model was designed to spend more time "thinking" on answers to user queries. This means using more computing power to analyze queries and provide more accurate answers than other models.
As a result, ChatGPT o1 is built to solve complex analytical questions. It’s noticeably better at analyzing extensive data to extract insights than previous ChatGPT models.
OpenAI tested o1 on challenging physics, chemistry, and biology questions to benchmark its performance. It solved 83% of problems in a qualifying exam for the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO), unlike the previous GPT-4o model, which only scored 13%.
As part of the benchmarking, the o1 model also performed highly in competitive programming contests on Codeforces and GPQA, a standard dataset of complex biology, physics, and chemistry questions.
For now, the o1 lacks some standard ChatGPT features like file uploads. However, OpenAI has clarified that these features will arrive soon.
How does the o1 model work?
The first thing users will observe with ChatGPT o1 is that it takes longer to answer queries than previous models. It "thinks" before answering your questions, reflecting its emphasis on reasoning. This prolonged analysis lets o1 solve more complex tasks than the GPT-4o model.
Reinforcement learning and chain-of-thought
OpenAI’s o1 model has two core mechanisms: reinforcement learning and chain-of-thought.
Reinforcement learning (RL) is a machine learning-based method of teaching software to make optimal decisions. It mimics the human mind's trial-and-error process to analyze situations and get positive or negative signals.
For example, the human mind interprets pain as a negative signal and pleasure as a positive signal. Hence, it adopts behaviors to optimize for pleasure and avoid pain. Similarly, reinforcement learning algorithms help the o1 model optimize for positive responses over negative ones. It enables ChatGPT o1 to learn continuously and improve its accuracy and reliability.
Chain-of-thought is what users observe when o1 takes noticeably long to answer their queries. The model breaks down complex user queries into smaller steps before finding answers, similar to how humans break down mathematical questions into different steps to arrive at the correct answer. This chain-of-thought reasoning makes o1 good at solving analytical questions.
Who should use the o1 model?
The o1 model is most useful for professionals tackling complex analytical problems.
For example, programmers can use it to generate code based on custom prompts or analyze existing codebases to find bugs and suggest improvements.
Medical experts can use the o1 model to analyze patient records, diagnose ailments, and suggest treatment plans.
Lawyers can use it to analyze cases to help generate arguments.
The use cases of this model’s enhanced analytical capabilities are endless.
Of course, this doesn't mean we can trust every output we get from o1 - it's still an LLM at the end of the day.
o1 best use cases
The o1 model’s enhanced reasoning capabilities make it best suited for analytical tasks. Some everyday use cases include:
Programming
Developers can use o1 to generate code based on custom prompts. They can specify the programming language and tell o1 to explain how the code works step-by-step and suggest optimizing it for different scenarios.
o1 can also help analyze existing codebases to identify bugs and possible fixes. Likewise, it can help with documentation for an existing codebase, interpreting and explaining it step-by-step.
Scientific research
Scientific researchers can leverage o1’s enhanced reasoning capabilities to analyze large data volumes and extract insights.
For example, you can give o1 an experiment’s dataset and ask it to find correlations. Physicists can use it to generate complex mathematical formulas for quantum optics research.
Medical diagnostics
Medical professionals can use o1 to analyze information and identify patterns. For example, you can upload X-ray images and ask o1 to help interpret them. With its improved analytical capabilities, the o1 model can help diagnose ailments from X-ray images and suggest possible treatment options.
You can also upload medical records and ask o1 to help diagnose illnesses. The latest OpenAI model excels at repetitive analysis for medical research.
Financial modeling
Investment bankers and other finance professionals can use o1 to analyze vast swathes of data. For example, you can upload a spreadsheet of the financial performance of a publicly-traded company over three decades. Then, you’ll ask o1 to identify patterns from the data.
What was the company’s average quarterly growth over the past decade? What was the company’s year-on-year revenue growth over the past five years? Can I get a five-year forecast based on the company’s historical financial performance? The o1 model can answer these questions, saving time you would have spent analyzing the data manually.
Education
ChatGPT o1 can be a valuable education companion. Students can ask it to solve complex problems in science, maths, chemistry, physics, and other analytical fields. You can use it as a search engine to get more detailed answers to educational questions, e.g., “How does wind power work?” or “What’s the relationship between energy and power?”
The o1 model can deliver personalized learning experiences for different users, helping each student learn at their own pace. It can also be a valuable companion that helps teachers explain topics to students.
Legal services
Lawyers can use ChatGPT o1 to analyze legal documents to ensure they’re legally binding and comply with industry standards. They can use it to automate certain legal services, such as drafting contracts.
To leverage o1’s enhanced reasoning, lawyers can upload case files and ask it to help generate legal arguments. With more GPU processing power at its disposal, o1 can analyze vast legal data to give accurate insights.
Marketing
You can use ChatGPT o1 to generate personalized marketing messages for customers. You'll feed it user data and behavior patterns, and the o1 model can create compelling marketing messages based on the data. Its enhanced reasoning makes it a helpful companion for marketing professionals.
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How to access ChatGPT o1
If you are subscribed to the Plus or Team plan, the o1 model is easily accessible from ChatGPT’s interface.
All you have to do is click on the model dropdown at the top left of your ChatGPT window and select the o1 model.
Access to the o1 model is rate-limited on the ChatGPT Plus or Team plan; you can send 50 messages weekly to o1 and 50 daily to o1-mini. Only the newly unveiled ChatGPT Pro subscription unlocks unlimited nearly access to the o1 model, according to OpenAI.
How safe is ChatGPT o1?
Safety is paramount when developing new AI models, and o1 excels in this area than previous ChatGPT models. OpenAI's key safety metric is the model's resistance to "jailbreaking" attempts, i.e., how well the model follows its safety rules when users attempt to bypass them.
In a technically challenging jailbreaking test, the o1 model scored 84, compared to GPT-4o's 22. This higher score demonstrates a sizeable improvement in the model’s safety.
OpenAI has invested more in its safety team, hiring experts to help with rigorous jailbreaking tests and simulated cyber attacks to evaluate its resistance. It has also formalized agreements with the U.S. and U.K. AI Safety Institutes, granting them early access to new models for third-party safety testing.
What is o1 pro mode?
The big news alongside the release of the o1 model was the launch of ChatGPT Pro. For $200 monthly, this Pro plan gives unlimited access to the o1 Pro mode, an advanced version of the o1 model.
The o1 pro mode has the same mechanisms and enhanced analytical capabilities as the o1 model. However, a core difference exists: o1 pro mode lets users request extra computing resources to solve problems. The additional computing power makes the o1 pro mode perform even more reliably than the o1 model.
OpenAI tested the o1 pro mode against o1 and o1-preview to illustrate its better accuracy and reliability. It used three main benchmarks:
- The American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) of 2024.
- Competitive programming contests on Codeforces.
- The GPQA dataset of physics, biology, and chemistry questions.
The results are shown below:
o1 pro mode performed impressively and slightly better than the o1 and o1-preview models in the three benchmarks.
OpenAI then used a stricter “4/4 reliability benchmark,” i.e., each model had to provide the correct answers in four out of four attempts to be considered correct. It got the following results:
o1 pro mode performed exceedingly better in the 4/4 reliability test than the o1 and o1-preview models, demonstrating its higher reasoning capabilities. A ChatGPT Pro subscription unlocks unlimited access to o1 pro mode to solve complex issues.
What is o1-mini?
Alongside the full o1 model, OpenAI also unveiled the o1-mini. It is a miniaturized version of the o1 model with faster reasoning but a smaller depth of knowledge. It's ideal for tasks that focus more on analytics than broad knowledge.
o1-mini's smaller size gives it faster reasoning and lower computing requirements, making it ideal for queries where speed and efficiency are paramount. It provides faster responses than the o1 model.
ChatGPT Plus users can access the o1 and o1-mini models, but the o1 pro mode is exclusive to ChatGPT Pro users.
o1-mini is currently in beta and has the same missing features as o1, e.g., uploading text files. However, OpenAI has promised to add these features later and keep improving the o1-mini alongside its parent o1 model.
Learn more about AI with Whop
ChatGPT o1 was one of OpenAI’s most anticipated releases, and the full version has finally arrived. It came with technical advancements to solve more complex problems than previous ChatGPT models.
OpenAI is in the first few days of its 12-day event, so expect more announcements from the company. It has promised to keep iterating and improving its models, so o1 might be the beginning of what’s to come.
If you want to keep expanding your AI knowledge, it's the best time to join Whop and discover the best AI-focused communities. Head to the Discover page and find an AI-focused group to level-up your AI education.
