OpenAI o1 and DeepSeek R1: The Reasoning Models

Until 2024, LLMs (like GPT-4) were “probabilistic parrots” with flashes of brilliance. They answered instantly, relying on pattern matching. The new generation, led by OpenAI o1 and DeepSeek R1, introduces a fundamental change: Time to Think.

🐢 System 1 vs System 2

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman distinguishes between two modes of thinking:

• System 1: Fast, instinctive, emotional. (GPT-4o, Gemini Flash).
• System 2: Slow, deliberative, logical. (OpenAI o1, DeepSeek R1).

Reasoning models force the AI to use System 2. Before answering, they generate an internal Chain of Thought (CoT).

User: “Create a regex for emails that excludes domains ending in .biz”

Standard Model: (Instantly writes a regex that might fail on edge cases).

Reasoning Model: (Thinking…)

1. “I need to match standard email format.”
2. “I need a negative lookbehind for .biz.”
3. “Wait, regex lookbehinds are tricky in some engines. Let’s check constraints.”
4. “Let’s test with ‘user@company.biz’…” -> Final Answer: (A robust, tested regex).

🥊 o1 vs R1

OpenAI o1 (Preview/Mini)

• Pros: Incredible logic capability. Solves PhD-level physics problems and complex refactorings.
• Cons: Expensive. Slow. High latency makes it bad for chatbots, great for offline agents.

DeepSeek R1

• Pros: Open Weights! You can run it (or distilled versions) locally. Very efficient.
• Cons: slightly behind o1 in extreme complexity, but rapidly closing the gap.

🛠️ When to use them in Android Dev?

DON’T Use Reasoning Models for:

• “How do I center a text in Compose?” (Overkill, slow).
• “Write a commit message.”

DO Use Reasoning Models for:

• Architecture Design: “Review my Clean Architecture layer boundaries for circular dependencies.”
• Complex Debugging: “Here is a race condition in Coroutines involving 3 flows. Trace the deadlock.”
• Refactoring: “Convert this God Activity to MVVM, splitting logic into UseCases.”

🎯 Conclusion

We are moving from “Search Engines that chat” to “Reasoning Engines that code”. For complex engineering tasks, latency is a price worth paying for correctness.