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Ask HN: Who Is OpenAI's O1 For?

13 points by dbreunig ↗ HN
It's more expensive, can handle edge case (albeit embarassing) questions, but still makes errors. Where would you use this in production that you wouldn't use 4o, vanilla or fine-tuned?

For who and what is this for?

26 comments

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crackalamoo
o1 could be useful for heavy math/science/coding work, such as a study tool or coding assistant. If new o1-based tools come out and the model gets too good at this kind of work, many software engineers might be cooked. The codeforces result is concerning, although codeforces is not representative of software engineering in industry.
JSDevOps
It’s absurd to claim that software engineers are obsolete just because AI models like o1-preview still spew out fictional libraries and incorrect functions. These models frequently get basic facts wrong, especially when the information isn’t widely available online. The so-called improvements in reasoning don’t fix the fundamental issue: these models have zero ability to verify whether the garbage they pull from their neural networks is accurate.

Let’s be clear—software engineers aren’t going anywhere. AI might be a tool, but it can’t replace the expertise and critical thinking that engineers bring to the table. The constant loop of “You’re absolutely correct, and I apologize for the oversight in my previous response. [Let me make another guess.]” only highlights how much AI still relies on guesswork rather than true understanding. It’s laughable to think that engineers are “cooked” when these models can’t even tell fact from fiction reliably. Engineers aren’t the ones who are “cooked”—it’s the hype around AI that’s overdone.

altdataseller
ChatGPT has got to be the worst debate partners to practice with. They will give up so easily and tell you “you have a good point and are right.” as soon as you refute them.
vonunov
What if that actually is the case, and your human opponents were just obstinate?

(Okay, yeah, I mean, I did have to specifically demand pushback -- Gemini took it too seriously and started talking mad shit: https://i.vgy.me/WHRZD7.png )

p1esk
My guess is software engineers still have about 2-3 years of employment left. After that they will look like those switchboard operators who manually plugged cables to connect phone calls.
gwoolhurme
Then quit now. Go find another job. Why do you feel that way? Give me something substantial instead of this.
p1esk
I will probably be forced to go into SWE management then, something I don’t enjoy.

Why do I feel this way? Because I expect significant improvement from Orion, and I don’t think it will stop improving after that.

gwoolhurme
SWE management won’t be a thing either. Hopefully you can find another job.
p1esk
When SWE management’s no longer a thing I’m afraid there won’t be many professions left.

By that time I really hope we will have some sort if UBI, so at least we won’t starve to death.

madamelic
Honestly... SWE management already is kind of already out-of-date and I say that as someone who is a SWE manager.

Most software teams can pretty much run themselves and the only real use a SWE manager has imo is running interference because the rest of the company are morons and/or chaotic and being the gopher for things the team needs. I think a manager who isn't also participating in the work should be removed as they are a net-negative.

If the rest of the company is calm and sane, in my opinion, you could have a team with senior+ ICs that take turns doing planning or doing a collaborative planning.

gtirloni
> When SWE management’s no longer a thing

You just said developers will be gone in 2-3 years. There won't be any humans to manage. Did you mean you'll be a SWE manager of LLMs?

p1esk
Did you mean you'll be a SWE manager of LLMs?

Yes, hopefully for a couple more years until such managers are themselves automated.

gtirloni
> Because I expect significant improvement from Orion

Could you share the scientific basis for this expectation? Something other than pure hype from OpenAI would be good.

p1esk
Google “llm scaling laws”.
infamouscow
Thankfully, most of us aren't as stupid as you :)

Respectfully, short of actually providing a shred of convincing evidence that isn't backed by your feelings, the plights of the mediocre are deserving of intense derision.

Your idiotic demoralization of those starting their careers will not fester into the industry. The mods will ban my account here before than happens.

gwoolhurme
Damn honestly why is this downvoted at all. Very anecdotal but I tried out the new o1-preview available to me, and it did not produce anything noticeably better for my domain. To claim this is “reasoning” to me seems infuriating
msikora
The market may simply require less engineers. I think entry levels are cooked (they kind of already are anyway). I'm quite confident that the near future of SW development will bean experienced engineer working in tandem with these systems, guiding, reviewing and correcting their work. Further future (>2030) if AGI actually pans out then white collar work is mostly cooked.
madamelic
> Further future (>2030) if AGI actually pans out then white collar work is mostly cooked.

"White collar work" is no less cooked than horse & buggy drivers were when the car was invented. They'll still have jobs, they'll just be doing the same thing but for a new technology.

Either creating data for the AI, interpreting data from the AI, or developing further AIs and that's only the single surface level that works with AI. You are still going to have 'human touch' jobs where an AI or robot is unable or disallowed from doing because of tastes (ie: someone prefers a human do it; childcare, cooking, etc.), boundary-passing (ie: there is no data yet on how to do a certain task), or sensitive (ie: working with sensitive content or at a top-secret site).

I don't predict we are going to have AIs negotiating or interpreting contracts single-handedly unsupervised. We aren't going to see self-piloting planes that have no human workers onboard.

With that said, the job market will be more tight because we'll just need less people because 'shit work' & glue work will be largely done by AI. Short of a nuclear war, developed countries' governments are going to need to come up with something fast if they want to stay.

authorfly
It's better at planning a system design and asking the right questions (e.g. "Potential problems and challenges") then a 2-3 year experienced developer I would say. Will be very useful for scientific and biotech companies with less strengths in programming, but more in the science of their domain.
uptownfunk
It’s for VCs to go ooh and aah and boost their valuation.
ActorNightly
Basically, in order to stay relevant, Open AI and others are just going to do more meta trainings of smaller LLMs over LLMS, so you are going to get some specialized LLMS that do good for certain things, but you aren't going to see any massive improvement in functionality until someone fundamentally rethinks architecture down to the core.
closetkantian
For me, it's substantially better at coding tasks than 4o.