Why Does ChatGPT’s Algorithm ‘Think’ in Chinese?
OpenAI recently unveiled a new algorithm, o1, which the company calls its “reasoning” model. The idea behind the algorithm is that it spends “more time thinking” before it responds, thus delivering better answers. However, the algorithm appears to “think” not just in English but in several different languages. Web users recently noticed that the program was randomly displaying Chinese characters, as well as code that appeared to be written in several other languages.
Most people will only pay attention to the final output that ChatGPT produces, but users have the option to look at how the model is reasoning its way to an answer. That’s where many people noticed that the LLM had begun to incorporate Mandarin and Cantonese into its process.
“Why did o1 pro randomly start thinking in Chinese?” asked Rishab Jain, via X. “No part of the conversation (5+ messages) was in Chinese… very interesting… training data influence.”
