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> Note that in recent times, some doubt has been cast on if this technique is as powerful as believed. Additionally, there’s significant debate as to exactly wh

> Note that in recent times, some doubt has been cast on if this technique is as powerful as believed. Additionally, there’s significant debate as to exactly what is going on during inference when Chain-of-Thought is being used... I love this new era of computing we're in where rumors, second-guessing and something akin to voodoo have entered into working with LLMs.

ezst 2y ago
That's the thing, it's a novel form of computing that's increasingly moving away from computer science. It deserves to be treated as a discipline of its own, with lots of words of caution and danger stickers slapped over it.
- skydhash 2y ago
  It’s text (word) manipulation based on probalistic rules derived from analyzing human-produced text. And everyone knows language is imperfect. That’s why we have introduced logic and formalism so that we can reliably transmit knowledge. That’s why LLMs are good at translating and spellchecking. We’ve been describing the same world and almost all texts respect grammar. That’s the first things that surface. But you can extract the same rules in other way and create a program that does it without the waste of computing power. If we describe computing as solving problems, then it’s not computing because if your solution was not part of the training data, you won’t solve anything. If we describe computing as symbol manipulation, then it’s not doing a good job because the rules changes with every model and they are probabilistic. No way to get a reliable answer. It’s divination without the divine (no hint from an omniscient entity).
- amelius 2y ago
  Yeah like psychology being a different field from physics even if it is running on atoms ultimately. Imagine if physics literature was filled with stuff about psychology and how that would drive physicists nuts. That's how I feel right now ;)
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ezst 2y ago

That's the thing, it's a novel form of computing that's increasingly moving away from computer science. It deserves to be treated as a discipline of its own, with lots of words of caution and danger stickers slapped over it.

skydhash 2y ago
It’s text (word) manipulation based on probalistic rules derived from analyzing human-produced text. And everyone knows language is imperfect. That’s why we have introduced logic and formalism so that we can reliably transmit knowledge. That’s why LLMs are good at translating and spellchecking. We’ve been describing the same world and almost all texts respect grammar. That’s the first things that surface. But you can extract the same rules in other way and create a program that does it without the waste of computing power. If we describe computing as solving problems, then it’s not computing because if your solution was not part of the training data, you won’t solve anything. If we describe computing as symbol manipulation, then it’s not doing a good job because the rules changes with every model and they are probabilistic. No way to get a reliable answer. It’s divination without the divine (no hint from an omniscient entity).
amelius 2y ago
Yeah like psychology being a different field from physics even if it is running on atoms ultimately. Imagine if physics literature was filled with stuff about psychology and how that would drive physicists nuts. That's how I feel right now ;)
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