OpenAI’s AI reasoning model ‘thinks’ in Chinese sometimes and no one really knows why

By: Kyle Wiggers

14 January 2025 at 07:05

Shortly after OpenAI released o1, its first “reasoning” AI model, people began noting a curious phenomenon. The model would sometimes begin “thinking” in Chinese, Persian, or some other language — even when asked a question in English. Given a problem to sort out — e.g. “How many R’s are in the word ‘strawberry?'” — o1 […]