ChatGPT-4o1
Today I was reading a paper1, and came across the following sentence.
On a physical level, gel formation triggers a steep increase in viscosity and effectively halts molecular motion among the crosslinked molecules, mirroring other liquid-solid phase transitions like colloidal aggregation or the glass transition (Trappe et al., 2001)."
Now that’s fascinating, I thought. I’m familiar with glass transitions, but I’ve never heard of colloidal aggregation or gel formation being phase transitions.
I vaguely know that a “colloid” is a bunch of solid bits floating in a liquid, and this is considered different from a “solution” which has…non-solid bits floating in a liquid. But, like, technically, if you dissolve salt in water, isn’t that kind of like a “solid” Na ion and a “solid” Cl ion floating in a liquid? How small do you have to be before something changes from being a very tiny solid to part of the liquid?
This is exactly the kind of question AIs like GPT, Gemini, and Claude are great at. I’ve been hearing about how, instead of increasing the native intelligence2 or knowledge of the latest version of GPT, the new 4o1 instead has the ability to spend more time thinking about a question.
I wanted to compare 4o and 4o1 in my own use case, so I asked them both about this.
4o failed at explaining the cutoff between solution and colloid; it repeated phrases that didn’t clarify much. But it succeeded in explaining that as colloid particles aggregate, there is a sharp point at which they’ve accumulated so close that liquid is trapped and the particles can’t move.
4o1 did significantly better. It’s answer was better organized and, other than a summary at the end, it didn’t repeat itself. It explained that in solutions, elements are dissolved at the molecular level, while in colloids, particles are larger than typical molecules. 4o1 also informed me of a highly-relevant category I hadn’t explicitly mentioned: suspensions. It explained that the difference between a colloid and a suspension is that a colloid’s particles are small enough to float indefinitely, while a suspension’s larger particles will eventually settle to the bottom. It gave examples that were helpful for picturing the difference: salt water is a solution, milk is a colloid, and muddy water is a suspension.
4o1 also did better on the aggregation question. It started with context that I was missing: colloid particles usually have a repulsive force that keeps them apart. Changes in temp, pH, and the like can alter that. Like 4o, 4o1 identified the aggregation transition as the point where particles are so jammed together they can’t move.
If you want to read the full 7-paragraph question and their answers, you can read GPT-4o’s answer…once you scroll past the conversation about neurotransmitters and varicosities. And GPT-4o1’s answer…followed by the question “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” because that was a suggested question, and I was curious how the latest-greatest-AI thinks about categorization issues.
Does Microsoft own HP?
When I said “Two digital interactions”, did you think I mean 4o and 4o1? No, I did not.
The GPTs were interaction #1. State-of-the-art AIs doing better and better jobs of thinking. Now we go to the exact opposite end of the spectrum, in which basic electronic devices fail at the one job they’re supposed to do.
We have a Brother printer-scanner, but both print and scan jobs come out looking off; I haven’t taken the time to troubleshoot this.
We also have an HP printer-scanner. Printing to it is easy and comes out looking right. Scanning from it requires me to do a series of annoying and should-be-unnecessary steps, but comes out looking fine.
This week, I thought I would catch up on scanning documents from recent experiments. The HP ran all the papers through the feeder, thought about it a bit, then said “File path does not exist”. Mentally sighing, I went through my tedious steps to fix this recurring issue.
Only this time, that didn’t work either.
Yesterday I spent a few hours trying to troubleshoot this. I eventually decided I should ask the state-of-the-art digital systems to help me with the dumb-as-a-doorbell digital systems. I didn’t want GPT to tell me to do things I’d already tried, so I wrote up a list of actions attempted3:
Printer-scanner: HP Color Laser Jet Managed MFP E47528.
Computer: 14-inch 2021 Macbook Pro, running Sonoma 14.6.1, with an Apple M1 Max chip.
Problem: Can't scan to computer.
Attempted:
Scan to Network Folder approach
use browser on computer to access printer settings
set up a QuickSet (i.e. a shortcut) that performs "Scan to Network Folder"
select "save to shared folders or FTP folders"
set Network Folder Path to \\192.168.86.54\scan
set up "scan" folder on Desktop with public-shared access
+ this works
≠ try it again on a different day, doesn't work
on computer, go to Settings > WiFi > details, find computer's new IP
use printer's browser interface to edit the QuickSet shortcut
input new IP into Folder Path: \\192.168.86.53\scan
+ this works
(repeat as needed; keeping updating IP whenever it changes)
update computer from earlier version to Sonoma
attempt a scan; when it fails, repeat steps to input new IP
≠ doesn't work. Get "network folder path specified does not exist" error, even with correct IP.
software approach
go to HP's support page for E47528
get latest version of recommended driver software (HP Smart)
connect software to printer
click "printer scan"
≠ See "This feature is not supported by the selected printer. Connect to a different printer to use this feature."
website troubleshooting approach
click HP's "get support for this device" link
select scanner issues
website sends me to video directions for Print&ScanDoctor software
≠ discover Print&ScanDoctor only works with Windows, not Macs
for macs, website recommends use HPSmart software to run Diagnose&Fix
Diagnose&Fix isn't where website says it is, look around and find it
≠ D&F says no issues were found (seems to be focused only on printing, not scanning)
update approach
update printer's firmware
wait for printer to reboot
≠ still get 'path doesn't exist' error
verify scan folder is public
on computer, go to Settings > General > Sharing > FileSharingInfo
FileSharing is on, 'allow full disk access for all users' is on
SharedFolders lists two folders, one of them is "scan" folder
click "scan" folder, check Users access
me: Read&Write. "Staff": Read&Write. "Everyone": Read&Write. max level of access is given.
click 'options'
"share files and folders using SMB" is on
"Windows File Sharing" is on (for two accounts, both with my name?? but 'settings > users' only lists one admin account for me, and a 'guest user' account)
aaaaggghhhh approach
look at printer's scan-sending options for alternatives
scanToEmail asks for server name and port number to configure SMTP
≠ don't know what this means or how to find/make? those numbers (also, downloading files from email is tedious)
scanToNetworkFolder
≠ can't figure out why it can't find public folder?!
scanToSharePoint says scan to Microsoft SharePoint site
≠ work doesn't use SharePoint? and anything 'Microsoft' probably doesn't work great with macbook?
scanToOneDrive
≠ work doesn't use OneDrive
scanToUSB
uggghhh, that's so tedious to do every time I need to scan files, there has to be something better?
reboot computer too
+ works now
I never did paste the question into GPT, since that last step made it work. I have done enough troubleshooting that “reboot everything” really should have been what I tried first, but I hate re-opening my browser tabs, and some part of my brain is irrationally hopeful that someday I’ll find a way to scan that doesn’t require me to tediously input a new IP address all the time4, so…yeah, I didn’t think to try rebooting my computer right away. shrug.
Shoutout to Andy McKenzie, who reads my blog and is the paper’s author.
I’m more or less equating “native intelligence” to “compute put into base training”. As I understand it, 4o1 wasn’t just given the ability to form longer chains of thought, it was in some way trained on these. So people say that 4o1 can do things better than if you tried to use an extended conversation to manually implement chains of thought. There is presumably an increase in native intelligence in this sense, but it’s small compared to, say, the difference between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4.
I didn’t do all these actions in this order, yesterday. I did them at some point in time in the past. I had tried updating HPSmart software, updating scanner firmware, and double-checking all the public-access settings on the “scan” folder.
The obvious method is “buy a new scanner”, but that’s not happening anytime soon.