The Curious Case of OpenAI's o1: Why Does This Reasoning Model Sometimes "Think" in Chinese?
OpenAI's AI model o1 mysteriously switches languages while reasoning. Why?
Matilda
The Curious Case of OpenAI's o1: Why Does This Reasoning Model Sometimes "Think" in Chinese?
OpenAI's o1, billed as their first "reasoning" AI model, has been making waves, but not for the reasons you might expect. Users have reported a peculiar behavior: o1 occasionally switches languages mid-reasoning, inexplicably transitioning from English to Chinese, Persian, or other languages, even when the input and desired output are strictly in English. The Enigma: Reasoning in a Foreign Tongue Imagine this: you ask o1 a simple question like, "How many R's are in the word 'strawberry?'" The model, instead of providing a straightforward answer, embarks on a series of reasoning steps, some of which are conducted in a language other than English. The final output may be in English, but the internal thought process appears to diverge, dipping into unexpected linguistic territories. This unexpected behavior has puzzled users and researchers alike. "Why did [o1] randomly start thinking in Chinese?" a user inquired on X. "No part of the conver…
