Skip to content

← All Q&A

Can a well-designed prompt outperform OpenAI's o1 model?

AI ProductMeasurement

Drawn from Lutz Finger's Forbes column, LinkedIn writing, and Cornell teaching. Sources are cited inline so you can read the originals.

Human-written prompts can still beat o1’s automated reasoning processes.

Yes. A well-designed prompt, meaning the human writes the instruction, can, so far, outpace OpenAI’s o1. This is noteworthy because o1 is designed specifically for reasoning through an iterative, self-calling process with dedicated steps for iteration, reflection, and feedback loops. The fact that careful human-written prompts can still exceed its performance suggests that the model’s reasoning capabilities, while advanced, have not yet surpassed what skilled human prompt engineering can achieve.

Sam Altman Says, ‘We Know How To Build AGI’ — Not So Fast · Forbes


Have a follow-up? hello@lutzfinger.com. Or pick another question: all Q&A →