Musings on Models

Bird added in post.

I've been wrestling with a stubborn PDF issue. Naturally, I fired up #ChatGPT and immediately stumbled into a puzzling predicament and the genesis of this article...

Technically, my question was coding-adjacent, but didn't actually involve writing any code. I'm left wondering did I pick the right ChatGPT model? Should I change to something tailored more specifically to my not-quite-coding-but-sort-of-coding problem?

And thus, this article was born: #OpenAI, we need to talk about your messaging problem. Even for seasoned tech veterans, choosing between models feels like picking wine at a restaurant—I usually end up nodding politely and pretending I understand the difference.

On my $20-a-month "not-moneybags" plan, here are my options:

• o1 - Advanced reasoning (but apparently not fast?)

• o3-mini - Fast advanced reasoning (as opposed to slow advanced reasoning?)

• o3-mini-high - Great at coding and logic (but is it also fast?)

• o4 - Great for questions (wait, aren’t they all great for questions?)

• o4-mini - Fast for most questions (but which ones aren't covered?)

• 4 (Legacy Model) - Old faithful?

• o4.5 - Good for creative writing and exploring ideas (so, basically every other model, too?)

• Magic super 'research' button

Honestly, would "fast advanced reasoning" (o3-mini) not always trump "advanced reasoning" (o1)? Is o4 inherently better than o3 because, well, numbers? And what the hell is the mysterious research button? Is this some kind of riddle?

I do not like your models, Sam (Altman). I cannot tell just where I am!

OpenAI, hear my plea. Make your choices clear to me!

Rumor has it that ChatGPT 5 will unify all these models under one mighty AI to rule them all. Its success, no doubt, hinges upon the sinew that binds these confusing sub-models together.

Will it truly become the GPT to rule them all? Time will tell.

(And don't even get me started on Google's Gemini last I checked; it offered approximately 13 flavors of confusion. Oh Google, what are we going to do with you?)

Editor's note: The draft name of this article was "Models-a-Popp'in".