OpenAI's 'Project Strawberry': Is the next big AI breakthrough just around the corner?

The tweet that launched a thousand theories

On Wednesday, Altman casually dropped a bomb on X with a photo of strawberries growing in planters, captioned simply: "i love summer in the garden."

To the uninitiated, it might seem like a pleasant musing about the joys of horticulture. But for those in the know, it was akin to Altman firing a starting pistol in the race to decipher OpenAI's next move.

Why? Because 'Strawberry' isn't just a delicious fruit – it's the rumoured codename for OpenAI's next-generation AI model that could push the boundaries of artificial intelligence even further.

The cryptic post sent the AI community into a frenzy. Within hours, Reddit went crazy with theories, tech X/Twitter was dissecting every pixel of the image, and AI enthusiasts worldwide were wondering: Is this it? Are we on the cusp of the next AI revolution?

Decoding the berry-based breadcrumbs

This isn't the first time Altman has teased major developments through seemingly innocuous tweets. Cast your mind back to the lead-up to GPT-4o's release, when Altman simply tweeted “her”, sending the tech world into a tizzy of anticipation.

(ChatGPT’s multimodal features released with GPT-4o made the app more similar than ever to the simulated female AI in Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie, “Her”).

But — Altman hypes aside — what do we actually know about 'Project Strawberry'? Frustratingly little, it turns out.

According to a Reuters report from last month, the project (previously known as Q*) is shrouded in secrecy, even within the hallowed halls of OpenAI itself.

What we do know is tantalising. Internal documents describe Strawberry as a leap forward in AI reasoning capabilities. We're talking about an AI that doesn't just spit out answers, but plans ahead, navigating the internet autonomously to conduct what OpenAI terms "deep research".

If true, this could represent a significant step towards artificial general intelligence (AGI) – the holy grail of AI research. It's a development that has the potential to reshape industries, accelerate scientific discovery, and fundamentally alter our relationship with technology.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. After all, we've been down this road of AI hype before. Remember when GPT-3 was going to put writers out of business? (Spoiler alert: It didn't.) Or when DALL-E 2 was supposed to replace graphic designers? (They're still very much in demand).

So, is 'Project Strawberry' the real deal, or just another serving of AI hype? As the tech world holds its collective breath, one thing's for certain: OpenAI knows how to keep us all on our toes. And Sam Altman? He's probably enjoying watching us all try to read between the vines.

Unpacking the Strawberry basket: What we know (and what we think we know)

Let's cut through the speculation and get to the meat (or should we say, the seeds?) of what 'Project Strawberry' might actually be.

According to that juicy Reuters report, Strawberry isn't just another incremental update to ChatGPT. Oh no, we're talking about a potential paradigm shift in AI capabilities. The project aims to create an AI that can plan ahead and navigate the internet autonomously to perform what OpenAI cryptically calls "deep research."

Imagine an AI that doesn't just answer your questions, but goes off on its own fact-finding mission, piecing together information from across the web to form original insights. It's like sending a digital Sherlock Holmes out into the vast expanse of the internet, armed with deductive reasoning and an insatiable curiosity.

Strawberry is also rumoured to showcase breakthrough capabilities in solving advanced science and math problems.

The cherry on top? Strawberry allegedly involves a specialised "post-training" process. Think of it as AI graduate school, where pre-trained models go to get even smarter. It's similar to Stanford's "Self-Taught Reasoner" (STaR), which sounds like a rejected superhero name but is actually a process where AI iteratively boosts its own intelligence by generating its own training data.

Talk about a self-made machine.

Why Strawberry could be more than just low-hanging fruit

Current AI models, as impressive as they are, often struggle with logical reasoning and common-sense problem-solving. They're like that friend who can recite obscure facts but can't figure out how to open a pickle jar.

Strawberry aims to bridge this gap, potentially bringing us one step closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI) – the kind of AI that can match or surpass human intelligence across a wide range of tasks.

Imagine an AI that could not only crunch numbers and generate text, but also make intuitive leaps, recognise complex patterns, and even generate novel scientific theories. We're talking about a potential Einstein in a box, minus the wild hair and the penchant for riding bicycles.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The jump from current AI to AGI is more of a Grand Canyon than a small step. OpenAI has a five-step plan towards AGI, and while Strawberry seems to be a significant stride forward, it's likely just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Still, the implications are mind-boggling. If Strawberry lives up to even a fraction of its potential, we could be looking at AI that revolutionises scientific research, accelerates technological innovation, and maybe even helps us tackle some of humanity's most pressing challenges. Climate change, complex diseases, sustainable energy – these could all be ripe for the picking with a sufficiently advanced AI assistant.

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility (and usually, a flood of ethical concerns). But we'll save that can of worms for another day. For now, let's just marvel at the possibility that the next big leap in AI might have been teased with nothing more than a humble photo of fruit.

Who knew the future of artificial intelligence could be so... delicious?