OpenAI has gone pretty quiet as soon as once more, with its much-hyped voice chat options rolling out way more slowly than anybody had anticipated.
However there have been murmurings about new tasks within the works, together with SearchGPT, which mixes generative AI and internet looking and the extra mysterious “Undertaking Strawberry.”
Strawberry’s origins lengthen again to November 2023, when a mannequin (extra so a coaching approach) named Q* surfaced in leaks from Reuters.
It was even speculated that Q* was doubtlessly harmful and performed some function in CEO Sam Altman’s hiring and firing final 12 months.
Q* was thought to mix a sophisticated reasoning mannequin with an AI agent able to exploring the web.
Regardless of dramatic headlines, ‘OpenAI is sitting on an apocalyptically highly effective mannequin,’ its legitimacy was very a lot contested on the time.
Extra particulars of the Q* challenge emerged in Could and June this 12 months, which noticed it renamed to Undertaking Strawberry or simply Strawberry.
In line with Reuters, Strawberry includes a specialised technique of coaching AI fashions to discover the web autonomously and conduct ‘deep analysis.’
The Q seemingly refers to Q-learning, a long-established reinforcement studying (RL) approach. As for the star (*), there’s extra uncertainty.
Reuters mentioned it’s much like a technique developed at Stanford referred to as “Self-Taught Reasoner” or “STaR.” Others say it pertains to a search algorithm named A*.
Sources talked about that OpenAI desires the mannequin to conduct analysis by autonomously looking the net, assisted by a “computer-using agent” (CUA) – which can be a key element of SearchGPT.
In line with these sources, OpenAI desires Strawberry to carry out “long-horizon duties” (LHT), which contain complicated planning and execution over prolonged intervals.
Stanford professor Noah Goodman, one among STaR’s creators, commented on the potential of such expertise:
“I feel that’s each thrilling and terrifying…if issues maintain moving into that path we now have some severe issues to consider as people.”
When requested about Strawberry, an OpenAI spokesperson offered a basic assertion concerning the firm’s AI growth objectives:
“We wish our AI fashions to see and perceive the world extra like we do. Steady analysis into new AI capabilities is a typical observe within the business, with a shared perception that these programs will enhance in reasoning over time.”
Social media stirs the pot
Not lengthy after the Reuters report, in early August, Altman posted a photograph of strawberries accompanied by the caption “i really like summer time within the backyard,” reigniting hypothesis concerning the Strawberry challenge.
i really like summer time within the backyard pic.twitter.com/Ter5Z5nFMc
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 7, 2024
Then, the person iruletheworldmo, a form of AI-focused meme/satire account (with a profile photograph of Theodore Twombly, performed by Joaquin Phoenix, from the AI movie Her, which has grow to be related to Altman), started posting strawberry-related content material, hinting at a possible ‘stage two’ breakthrough in AI.
The person posted: “welcome to stage two. how do you’re feeling? did I make you’re feeling?” Altman, CEO of OpenAI, responded with “superb tbh”.
This trade set off a sequence response of strawberry-themed posts and mass hypothesis throughout X and Reddit.
welcome to stage two.
how do you’re feeling?
did I make you’re feeling?
— 🍓🍓🍓 (@iruletheworldmo) August 7, 2024
Strawberry takes one other flip
Only in the near past, The Data revealed that OpenAI is gearing as much as launch a model of Strawberry as a part of a chatbot and presumably combine it into ChatGPT as quickly as this fall.
OpenAI additionally allegedly demonstrated Strawberry’s capabilities to US nationwide safety officers.
Curiously, in response to The Data, OpenAI is growing two distinct variations of Strawberry:
- This smaller, simplified model is meant for integration into chat-based functions like ChatGPT. It goals to reinforce reasoning capabilities in eventualities the place customers require extra considerate, detailed solutions relatively than fast responses.
- This bigger, extra highly effective model is used to generate high-quality “artificial” coaching information for OpenAI’s subsequent flagship language mannequin, codenamed “Orion.”
Artificial information generated by Strawberry may scale back reliance on internet-scraped textual content and pictures for coaching.
That might doubtlessly result in extra correct and dependable AI fashions, addressing persistent points like AI “hallucinations” or mannequin collapse.
Surprisingly, although, these characterizations of Strawberry don’t align that properly with the sooner descriptions of Q*.
Maybe we may speculate that Strawberry, the autonomous agent, surfs the net autonomously and makes use of its ‘deep analysis’ to synthesize artificial information.
Possibly that’s extra computationally environment friendly and helpful for mannequin coaching than merely scraping the uncooked information itself??
AI doesn’t know what number of R’s are in strawberry
Now, right here’s the place the story takes a weird and ironic twist.
Strawberry could be named after a phrase that present AI fashions, together with a number of the most superior ones, usually battle to spell accurately.
Ask an AI what number of ‘r’s are in “strawberry,” and there’s an opportunity it’ll confidently reply “two” as a substitute of the right “three.”
— Rob DenBleyker (@RobDenBleyker) August 26, 2024
Sounds ridiculous, proper? I didn’t imagine it till I attempted it with Claude.
Some allege that that is some kind of ‘easter egg’ or joke inside OpenAI’s programs. However seeing as Claude reacts the identical as ChatGPT, then except AI corporations are colluding on area of interest strawberry jokes behind the scenes, that appears unlikely.
The reason behind that is elegant in its simplicity.
Language fashions, regardless of the identify, are math-based programs. Textual content is translated into code, thus risking the lack of context and which means on the phrase stage. Why strawberry reliably catches this out is a extra complicated query.
So, whether or not OpenAI selected the identify “Strawberry” as a playful nod to this frequent AI stumbling block or pure coincidence stays unclear.
It does seem to be one thing Altman may do, whether or not Strawberry is even actual or not.
What’s subsequent on this weird however berry fascinating (…) strawberry story is anybody’s guess. To be trustworthy, I get the sense, at this stage, that not one of the speculatory ‘proof’ we now have from main information shops is wholly consultant of what’s happening at OpenAI.
We’ll have to attend for SearchGPT and/or GPT-5 to see simply how developed OpenAI’s merchandise grow to be off the again of Strawberry and their different tasks.
