OpenAI is steadfastly seeking to build the world’s first Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Project Strawberry is the company’s next step toward that goal, and might power the next generation of ChatGPT.
Project Strawberry is OpenAI’s latest (and potentially greatest) large language model, one that is expected to broadly surpass the capabilities of current state-of-the-art systems with its “human-like reasoning skills” when it rolls out. This isn’t a cheap piece of development, reportedly costing $7 billion on training and inference costs (with an overall $5 billion shortfall).
Project Strawberry will reportedly be a reasoning powerhouse. Using a combination of reinforcement learning and “chain of thought” reasoning, the new model will reportedly be able to solve math problems it has never seen before and act as a high-level agent, creating marketing strategies and autonomously solving complex word puzzles like the NYT’s Connections. It can even “navigate the internet autonomously” to perform “deep research,” according to internal documents viewed by Reuters in July.
During development, o1-preview was given a qualifying exam for the International Mathematics Olympiad, one that the previous GPT-4o model was only able to answer correctly with 13% accuracy. The new model answered 83% of the test’s questions. In terms of coding, o1-preview scored in the 89th percentile in an online Codeforces competition. o1 can even reportedly answer questions that stumped previous models like, “which is bigger, 9.11 or 9.9?” and “how many ‘Rs’ are in the word ‘Strawberry’?”
The Reuters report also notes that Strawberry’s architecture is similar to the Self-Taught Reasoner (STaR) technique. Developed at Stanford in 2022, STaR enables a model to generate training data on which to fine-tune itself, becoming more capable over time.
We don’t know the exact reason for the name “Strawberry,” as that’s not something OpenAI has publicly disclosed. It’s a code name chosen for internal reference and to maintain secrecy during development.
This was originally hinted at from a cryptic X post by CEO Sam Altman, which sent the internet into a flurry of rumors and speculation.
i love summer in the garden pic.twitter.com/Ter5Z5nFMc
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 7, 2024
Strawberry did not, however, start out as Strawberry. It reportedly used to be known as Q* (pronounced Q-Star), and when it was, Q* was the linchpin of CEO Sam Altman’s brief ouster last November.
OpenAI researchers specifically cited Q* in their letter to the company’s board decrying the potential risks posed by unregulated advanced AI. After Altman had consolidated power upon returning to OpenAI, Q* was reportedly renamed Strawberry in July 2024.
OpenAI launched a preview of Project Strawberry in September 2024, dubbed “o1-preview.” It was accompanied by a smaller, lighter-weight version of the new model, “o1-mini.”
At launch, the new model iteration was made immediately available to ChatGPT Plus and Teams subscribers and arrived for Enterprise and Edu users the following week. OpenAI claims that o1-mini will eventually be made available to free-tier users, though the company did not specify a timeline for that to happen.
No, we got Ultron because of comic book legends Roy Thomas and John Buscema, but the fears of an advanced AI growing out of human control are no longer entirely unfounded fantasy. Multiple sets of ex-OpenAI researchers have spoken out against the company’s efforts to develop an AGI, citing its lack of developmental safeguards.
However, those complaints have done little to slow OpenAI’s drive to develop an AGI within the next decade. The company recently released a five-tier scale for measuring the capabilities of the AI systems it builds toward that goal and is currently seeking additional funding (yes, besides Microsoft) in a new round led by Thrive Capitol that values the company in excess of $100 billion.
OpenAI has been leading the way with its AI development, but ChatGPT isn’t the only game in town. Check these alternative AI chatbots.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.