The AI community has been buzzing with excitement and skepticism following recent developments related to OpenAI’s “Project Strawberry.” This internal initiative, also known as Q* (pronounced Q-star), aims to develop AI models with advanced reasoning capabilities.
The project gained attention when Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, posted a seemingly innocuous tweet on August 7, 2024. The image of strawberries in his garden, captioned “i love summer in the garden,” was quickly interpreted as a hint about Project Strawberry. This sparked widespread speculation about potential breakthroughs in artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Adding to the intrigue, an anonymous X account (@iruletheworldmo) began posting about OpenAI’s strawberry project, claiming it has reasoning capabilities at level 2/5 on OpenAI’s AGI scale. While this account is probably a bot or a troll, the appearance of impressive anonymous models on the Large Model Systems Organization (LMSYS) Chatbot Arena has lent credibility to the speculation.
These models, ‘anonymous-chatbot’ and ‘sus-column-r’, have demonstrated exceptional performance, particularly in reasoning tasks. This has led some to believe that @iruletheworldmo might be onto something, despite the lack of official confirmation from OpenAI.
The AI community on platforms like Reddit has been actively discussing the implications of Project Strawberry. Users have expressed both excitement and skepticism, with some questioning whether Altman’s tweet was just a troll.
For those interested in staying informed about the latest developments in AI, including updates on projects like Strawberry, I recommend checking out my previous post on [GPT-5 and its potential leap towards multimodal AI](https://adam.holter.com/gpt-5-a-leap-towards-multimodal-ai-in-2025/). Additionally, for insights into how different AI models are evaluated, you might find my article on [LMSYS: The Public’s Playground for LLM Testing](https://adam.holter.com/lmsys-the-public) helpful.
As we continue to monitor the progress of Project Strawberry and other AI initiatives, it’s crucial to maintain a balanced perspective. While the potential for groundbreaking advancements is exciting, it’s equally important to critically evaluate claims and wait for official announcements before drawing conclusions.
Stay tuned for more updates and analysis on Project Strawberry and other developments in the world of AI. I’ll be here to break down the facts and help you understand what these advancements could mean for the future of technology.
