ChatGPT o1 is also uniquely pricey. In most models, you pay for input tokens and output tokens. However, ChatGPT o1 adds a hidden process (the small steps the model breaks big problems into), which adds a large amount of compute you never fully see. OpenAI is hiding some details of this process to maintain its competitive advantage. That said, you still get charged for these in the form of “reasoning tokens.” This further emphasizes why you need to be careful about using ChatGPT o1, so you don’t get charged a ton of tokens for asking where the capital of Nevada is.
The idea of an AI model that helps you “walk backwards from big ideas” is powerful, though. In practice, the model is pretty good at that.