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Can you elaborate? I think this is a really interesting question. It comes up over and over again, but it often feels like the two sides of the debate talk past
by qnleigh 2y ago
Can you elaborate? I think this is a really interesting question. It comes up over and over again, but it often feels like the two sides of the debate talk past each other. What does the mental model of 'iterative search through latent space' convey that 'reasoning' doesn't? Human reasoning also often searches through a space of potential solution methods and similar problems, and keeps applying them until making progress.
I appreciate that there might be danger in using words like 'thinking' and 'reasoning' in that they cause us to anthropomorphize LLMs, but if we are careful not to do so then this is a separate issue.
- naasking 2y ago"Search" a class of fairly well defined algorithms, "reasoning" is vague / ambiguous. If reasoning can be reduced to some kind of search, that makes its meaning more precise and understandable.
- qnleigh 2y agoSure one word is more precise than the other, but in the context of this question that's beside the point. If one makes the claim 'it's not reasoning, it's just X,' the burden of proof is that X is district from reasoning. That 'reasoning' is an ambiguous term, long makes it harder to argue that X is not compatible with. I was pointing out that, at least superficially, they seem potentially compatible. Again I'm not at all trying to argue that LLMs do reason. I'm trying to understand how one definitively argues that they don't.
- naasking 2y agoI agree I wouldn't a priori exclude reasoning as being a form of search, I was just addressing the question of reduction providing clarity. I do think people are far too dismissive of classifying something as reasoning simply because the latter is vague where the reduction is generally something understood.