Yes, so-called “reasoning” LLMs just talk to themselves. Adding this and calling it reasoning was the LLM industry’s way to print more money by confusing (tricking) normal people and investors. “AGI is right around the corner, we already having reasoning models.” The same industry stole the “agents” terminology from standard computing as well, because to most of the population, this makes them sound more capable than a normal LLM. It’s an infinite money glitch, or at least, it has been. I hope that the money is starting to run dry, given the new token restrictions being implement.