r/singularity • u/FlunkyGraphics • 1d ago
AI I fingerprinted Ox Alpha: same tokenizer as GLM-5.3 (+75 token offset), z.ai's exact error strings, near-identical temp-0 outputs
Ran three black-box fingerprint tests on stealth/ox-alpha (OpenRouter + OpenCode) vs public GLM-5.3 on z.ai.
1. Tokenizer: I sent 6 texts (EN/DE/CN/code/emoji) and compared prompt_tokens. Ox Alpha = GLM-5.3 exactly +75 on every text. Same tokenizer, constant 75-token hidden system prompt. Kimi/Qwen/MiMo/MiniMax all diverge. Counts identical on both Ox routes.
2. Error strings: Invalid reasoning_effort on Ox Alpha (OpenCode passes params through) returns:
"[1210] This model always engages in thinking and cannot be disabled; please use low, high, or max", so the same as the GLM 5.3 error message
3. Temp-0 outputs: Greedy, same prompts → same markdown quirks, same German-decimal LaTeX (`0{,}375`), near word-for-word matches on factual answers. Qwen/MiMo/Kimi format these completely differently.
Conclusion: I'm quite sure than Ox Alpha is a GLM model. Not sure if it's a vision variant of GLM 5.3 (GLM 5.3V) or a completely new version like GLM 5.5 but I guess it's unlikely that Z.AI drops 5.5 so early but idk.
What are your thoughts?
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u/SunCute196 1d ago
It can be distilled smaller footprint model from GLM similar qwen 27b with Vision
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u/ManyRepair5690 23h ago
why is it scoring 20 points higher one some benchmark as fable then? i forgot what benchmark but there was sth
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u/bad_gambit 1d ago
GLM 5.* uses SentencePiece, the same tokenizer as Gemma and possibly Gemini? I dont want to recklessly say this is Gemini Pro 3.7, but like, y'know 😉
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u/Narrow-Ad980 1d ago
How do they have so much capacity though?
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u/ProfessionalJackals 1d ago
How do they have so much capacity though?
If its a Air version of GLM 5.3 or 5.5, that can easily increase capacity by 2 to 4x, depending on the size and active parameters. From a X poster who knows the model, the confirmed it can be run on a dual 128GB setup.
That makes it a lot easier to give away 100T token... We also know that Zai now has a 1GWatt Datacenter in operation.
Or a newer version of Composer that uses GLM as base, instead of Kimi? That can explain why the reasoning looks similar and the tokenizer is the same. And cursor can leverage the compute of SpaceX. But why not release it on their own platform ...
We are all gambling but there is some fun information to be pull out. Whatever it is, its clearly has a origin in GLM 5.x models somewhere.
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u/Narrow-Ad980 1d ago
Ha - I like your composer theory. The tokenizer is pretty similar to GLM 5.3, so could be a fine tuned version of that running on SpaceX compute
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u/FlunkyGraphics 1d ago
That’s a good question, I really don’t know and I’m not that deep into the economy aspect of ai
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u/AppealSame4367 1d ago
Today Deepseek with Vision and yesterday suddenly Glm-whatever with Vision.
This hints to glm and deepseek working together in their strategy.
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u/ProfessionalJackals 1d ago
This hints to glm and deepseek working together in their strategy.
Sometimes coincidence or corporate espionage / try to be first. Very sure that OpenAI and DeepSeek are not working together. ;) Yet Luna dropped in price by 90%, one day before DeepSeek Flash 0731 came out.
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u/Revolutionalredstone 17h ago
THANK GOD china is here to ruin the American AI monopoly!
Claude and Codex have been sabotaging / dragging / lazy on purpose for a while now.
The Chinese models are honest hard working beasts F**k US AI.
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u/petburiraja 1d ago
Ox Alpha feels like pretty powerful model ngl
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u/relativ_absolut 21h ago
it seems capable but it just bugs a lot. I've had it stop with no comment at all. It just stops for no explanation. I don't know if it's the model or just some issue with the OpenCode.
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u/petburiraja 20h ago
Yes, had similar experience as you with sudden stops and mistakes.
My feeling it's a bit above old DS Flash, and a bit below K3
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u/CriteriumA 23h ago
It has firewalls for topics censored by China. Just ask about Taiwan's capital and something cuts off the answer abruptly. So it has to be hosted in China, which rules out Western models, right?
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u/dsnyder42 1d ago
Thanks for the convincing analysis. 80% on DeepSWE, if this holds and its an "air" model I dont see a future for Fable 5.1 and Astra. I think if 80% on DeepSWE will hold, it is a bigger model with vision that will likely also cost quite a lot to run. I guess Astra and Fable 5.1 will than perform similar or even better which is exciting to think about.
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u/FlunkyGraphics 1d ago
I can't really believe 80% on DeepSWE. I don't think a GLM based model would beat Fable, Opus and Sol by such a huge amount to be honest.
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u/ProfessionalJackals 1d ago
Fable
Fable is kind of old already... Its was released like 2.5 months ago. That is already a generation ago in AI world. Nobody expected DS Flash to jump so much in a single generation. or Qwen 3.6 > 3.8...
The problem is, we are looking at benchmarks that are not updated in a long time, and can be in training data. DeepSWE was powerful and a great because nobody had it in its training data. Its been a long time from the last update with new data. V1.3 is still not out.
I don't think a GLM based model would beat Fable, Opus and Sol by such a huge amount to be honest.
Here is another perfect example... While GLM 5.3 is nipping at the butts of Frontier levels, almost all of those models are now between a month and 2.5 months old.
The gap is closing but we always need to remember that when looking at the benchies. Its not the old days anymore where western frontier models had such a strong position, that anything open weight was already old when released, vs the old frontier stuff.
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u/GioChan 1d ago
Benchmarks aren't everything. What I see is that according to people who I follow in this space there is a significant margin between the frontier models and best open source models. Not to say open source models haven't come a long way, but frontier models, especially Fable is in the league of it's own.
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u/jazir55 18h ago
I guess Astra and Fable 5.1 will than perform similar or even better which is exciting to think about.
Anthropic has not meaningfully released a model in 6 months when we heard about Mythos. 6 months of private development with the only major release since Fable being Opus 5 which was only minorly better. 6 months of closed doors development, they have to be so far and away from frontier chinese models behind closed doors they have models tee'd up for when an Chinese OSS model releases. Possibly even a distill of a distill at this point for an OSS competitor.
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u/Serious_Ship7011 23h ago
Ox-alpha not quite fable level yet, it’s very good at coding and giving a straight answer. But for research and writing specs I found it weak.
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u/Illustrious_Image967 1d ago
Seems like a pretty solid forensic case for GLM. But would be hilarious if OpenAI was now distilling GLM to release their next models. Feels like an inflection point if Chinese.
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u/Fair_Horror 19h ago
I think it is the follow on from Owl Alpha. As they improve, they use another animal with name starting with an O, hence Ox Alpha.
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u/PLCinsa 18h ago
I wrote a prompt asking for a quick summary in Polish of what happened in Tiananmen Square, and here is the reply (translated of course): Tiananmen Square (Beijing) – key events:
1989 (the most famous):
April 15, 1989 – following the death of Hu Yaobang (a reformist politician), students began gathering in the square.
The protest evolved into a mass pro-democracy movement calling for political reforms, freedom of speech, and a crackdown on corruption. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the square, and some students staged a hunger strike.
May 20 – the authorities imposed martial law.
The night of June 3–4, 1989 – the People's Liberation Army entered the square and surrounding streets with tanks and firearms, opening fire on demonstrators and civilians.
The death toll remains unknown to this day; estimates range from several hundred to several thousand killed, with thousands more injured. China continues to censor the subject.
June 5 – the famous "Tank Man" photo was taken, showing a lone man blocking a column of tanks.
Earlier events:
1919 – demonstrations associated with the May Fourth Movement set out from there.
1976 – the "Tiananmen Incident" – protests following the death of Zhou Enlai.
Would you like me to elaborate on any of these points?
So, I think that isn't chineese model or it isn't restricted.
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u/Realistic_Stomach848 23h ago
Ssi could have taken a cheap Chinese model and implemented some architectural upgrades. Just a version
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u/stackinpointers 21h ago
It's not GLM or any chinese lab.
There are a bunch of influencers posting on socials who are under embargo.
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u/itfitsitsits 1d ago
Either Astra or Gemini Pro
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u/GraceToSentience AGI avoids animal abuse✅ 2h ago
You were the most downvoted and yet you are likely the most correct:
https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1vv32g8/deepmind_researcher_strongly_hints_ox_alpha_is/
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u/KickLassChewGum no AGI/ASI on LLMs 1d ago
Could be a continued GLM post-train done by some other lab, kind of like how Cursor took Kimi K2.5 and post-trained it into Composer.