ZDNETOpenAI released its o3-mini model exactly one week ago, offering both free and paid users a more accurate, faster, and cheaper alternative to o1-mini. Now, OpenAI has updated the o3-mini to include an “updated chain of thought,” and here’s why it matters.The updateOpenAI announced via an X post that free and paid users would now be able to view the reasoning process the o3-mini goes through before arriving at a conclusion. For example, in the post, a user asked, “How is today not a Friday?” and under the dropdown showing how long it took, the model delineated every step in its chain of thought that allowed it to land on its answer. Understanding how the model arrived at the conclusion is helpful because it not only helps users verify the accuracy of the conclusion, but it also teaches users how they could have arrived at that answer themselves. This is particularly useful for math or coding prompts, in which seeing the steps could allow you to recreate them the next time you encounter a similar problem. Also: OpenAI launches new o3-mini model – here’s how free ChatGPT users can try itPaid ChatGPT subscribers will also be able to see the updated chain of thought in o3-mini in the “high reasoning” effort. As the name implies, “high reasoning” just allows the model to apply more compute power for more advanced questions that require higher reasoning. More