What are the downsides of OpenAI's chain-of-thought approach in the o1 model?

Last Updated: 02.07.2025 10:47

What are the downsides of OpenAI's chain-of-thought approach in the o1 model?

#1. It increases computational overhead and processing time - leads to lengthy outputs so, not feasible for simple tasks

To explain the downsides better, you can try asking same question to GPT, it will provide a lengthy answer as if it were answering a question paper.

#2. Errors in early reasoning - leads to wrong conclusions

During the Atlmark incident in 1940, the Brit war criminals violated Norwegian neutrality. Hitler could then justify invading Norway. Have the Brits ever apologized for violating Norwegian neutrality?

OpenAI’s chain-of-thought approach is good for complex reasoning but, there are many downsides.

#3. Provides unnecessary details - bad user experience as some users need specific output to certain queries and having to analyze a big response can be hectic