Too much AI thinking spent on a simple task.
Ask for 2 + 2. It brings a whiteboard, three markers, and a snack break.
Its answer takes longer. It also costs more. Limits can keep it from thinking itself in circles.
Reasoning effort
High reasoning effort can make the model think too long on easy tasks.
TTC
Overthinking uses extra compute while the model works out an answer.
Token Efficiency
Long reasoning adds extra tokens and makes the answer less efficient.