TechnicalAI glossary
Reasoning model
A model that "thinks" before answering: it runs through an internal reasoning process, explores several avenues and corrects itself, instead of blurting out the first answer that comes to mind. That's the principle behind o3, Gemini Deep Think, or the "thinking" modes of GPT-5 and Claude: slower, but markedly more reliable on complex problems.
In other words
The student who works out the calculation in rough before handing in their paper, rather than answering off the cuff.
Alyriaz articles that mention it
- How do you monitor thirty thousand agents?
Monitoring agents that act continuously requires a precise technical setup. We explain how this control layer works, what it catches and what it lets through.
- A model that writes a text in one go instead of word by word
Diffusion models applied to text generate an entire response in parallel rather than word by word. We explain the principle, its speed advantages and its limitations.
- Why doesn't the same AI respond differently depending on the app?
The same model produces very different responses depending on the application using it. We explain the five factors behind this gap, and why it's useful to know.
- How does an AI find a security flaw?
Understanding how a model identifies a software vulnerability sheds light on both its capabilities and its limitations. The mechanism is explained without providing any exploitable details.
- OX Alpha: a state-of-the-art model appeared out of nowhere, free, and no one says who built it
An anonymous model named OX Alpha appeared on OpenRouter on 20 August, free of charge, with a million-token context window and multimodal support. No lab has claimed it. Here's a rundown of what we know, what's speculation, and the question no one is asking.
- What is a "reasoning model"? These AIs that take the time to think before answering
Deep Think mode, reasoning effort, sub-agents: recent models no longer respond immediately, they think first. We explain what a reasoning model is, what actually happens during that pause, why it improves answers, and why it sends the bill through the roof.