ChatGPT o1 Model is Unreal
When I graduated from high school, I enrolled at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, where I decided to major in Computer Science. In high school, I spent a lot of time on the computer—none of which was spent doing any sort of coding. As an only child, I played an excessive amount of video games to occupy my alone time.
Because I spent so much time playing video games, I naturally thought it would be a great idea to pursue computer science. I was terribly wrong. I hated it immediately. I was never good at math, and computer science felt like it was all math. To make matters worse, my professor had a hard time speaking English, and I struggled to understand his lectures. I met a classmate who gave me all the answers for the homework, but I still flunked the exams and scraped by with a C.
I called my dad and told him I wanted to change my major. Mind you, I was already on thin ice. I hadn’t been a great student in high school, and I had already failed to meet his expectation of attending a Big Ten school. The news that I wanted to drop computer science earned me a scolding, and I felt like an even bigger failure.
At the time, I was pledging a fraternity. One of the many benefits of fraternities is having access to upperclassmen who can offer advice. I turned to a few members in the business school, specifically two seniors majoring in Information Systems. This major was right up my alley: it involved technology but within the business school. That meant less coding, less math, and more courses focused on people skills—the one skill I felt confident in.
Fast forward 4.5 years, and I was graduating with a degree in Information Systems. My first job was at a mortgage company, and my role was titled "Scrum Master." Terrible job title, I know, but it was a people-oriented role within IT. It was the perfect fit for me: no math, no coding, and my people skills were on full display. Plus, my coworkers were nerds just like me, which made for easy conversations.
I’ve gotten a little sidetracked, but there’s a purpose behind this story. I never could code. I never even tried. Recently, I discovered the o1 model on ChatGPT, and it has completely changed my perspective on coding and what I can create. As of December 2024, the o1 model is the most powerful tool OpenAI has to offer. It actually thinks. Don’t believe me? Go try it yourself—it will blow you away.
I asked it to help me create a website, and it generated all the code in CSS and HTML, even outlining exactly how to structure the files. Additionally, it gave me step-by-step instructions on how to connect to GitHub, push updates, and publish my site using GitHub Pages. When I encountered issues setting things up, it easily troubleshot my problems and provided clear, actionable solutions.
But the most impressive thing about this model, aside from its ability to help you create virtually anything you can imagine, is how it delivers information in such an easy-to-understand way. I genuinely thought to myself, "How did I never understand this before?"
Now, I find myself questioning all the things I thought I could never create but suddenly have the tools to bring to life. For example, I used to publish maps on X/Twitter plotting where every Virginia Tech recruit came from. It was essentially a heatmap showcasing recruiting hotspots around the country. To do that, I manually scraped 247’s website, figured out the coordinates of each player's hometown, and plotted everything in Tableau.
Now, I can create an entire application that automatically pulls data with hometowns and coordinates and then publishes interactive maps to a web location anyone can access. It has me GEEKED.