4 ms·
Seems closer to "truly learning addition" (whatever that means) than what humans do. We use a mechanical algorithm to carry the 1 etc.
by bongodongobob 2y ago
Seems closer to "truly learning addition" (whatever that means) than what humans do. We use a mechanical algorithm to carry the 1 etc.
- pinkmuffinere 2y agoWhat? This is a crazy take. I feel we (humanity) has truly understood addition to a very high degree. The fact that we can see what an LLM is doing and understand “oh it’s doing addition in a rather roundabout way via Fourier transforms” is a testament to just how well we understand addition — we can recognize hundreds of different ways to achieve the operation, know that they are equivalent, and pick the most convenient one for the situation
- Ukv 2y agoI think humans do two broad types of arithmetic: #1: For small numbers, the answer is "directly" available to us without consciously applying any steps #2: For larger numbers, we consciously apply some formal method to break the problem down into smaller steps of type #1. Like column addition, adding digit-by-digit and carrying the ones Despite seeming direct, I'd argue that if we could see at a low-level what our neurons were actually doing for #1, like to get 3 + 5, it would likely also look roundabout. Might even be a similar process as with LLMs, approximating magnitude (~7-9) then snapping to parity (even, since 3 and 5 are odd). LLMs should be capable of #2, including choosing an appropriate method, with chain-of-thought reasoning. But in addition to that, and I think what bongodongobob is getting at, is that LLMs appear to have a more robust #1 than us - being able to accurately add far larger numbers whereas we'd normally fall back to a step-by-step method after one or two digits.