4 ms·

> LLMs are not deterministic They are designed to be where temperature=0. Some hardware configurations are known defy that assumption, but when running on perf

• vlovich123 9mo ago
  Even with temperature and a batch size of 1 and fixed seed LLMs should be deterministic. Of course batch size of 1 is not economical.
• troupo 9mo ago
  with temperature=0 and no context. That is, a clean run with t=0, pk=0 etc. etc. will produce the same output for the same question. However if you ask the same question in the same session, output will be different. To say the least, this is garbage compared to compilers
  • 9rx 9mo ago
    > However if you ask the same question in the same session, output will be different. When isn't that true? int main() { printf("Continue?\n"); } and int main() { printf("Continue?\n"); printf("Continue?\n"); } do not see the compiler produce equivalent outputs and I am not sure how they ever could. They are not equivalent programs. Adding additional instructions to a program is expected to see a change in what the compiler does with the program.
    • troupo 9mo ago
      If you ask the compiler to compile the same input, it will produce the same output. With LLMs the output depends on the phases of the moon.
      • 9rx 9mo ago
        > If you ask the compiler to compile the same input, it will produce the same output. As with LLMs, unless you ask for the output to be nondeterministic. But any compiler can be made nondeterministic if you ask for it. That's not something unique to LLMs. > With LLMs the output depends on the phases of the moon. If you are relying on a third-party service to run the LLM, quite possibly. Without control over the hardware, configuration, etc. then there is all kinds of fuckery that they can introduce. A third-party can make any compiler nondeterministic. But that's not a limitation of LLMs. By design, they are deterministic.
        • troupo 9mo ago
          > But any compiler can be made nondeterministic if you ask for it. That's not something unique to LLMs. Not unique as in: no one makes their compilers deterministic, and you have to work to make a non-deterministic one. LLMs are non-deterministic by default, and you have to contort them to the point of uselessness to make them deterministic > If you are relying on a third-party service to run the LLM, quite possibly. Without control over the hardware, configuration, etc. Again. Even if you control everything, the only time they produce deterministic output is when they are completely neutered: - workaround for GPUs with num_thread 1 - temperature set to 0 - top_k to 0 - top_p to 0 - context window to 0 (or always do a single run from a new session)
          • 9rx 9mo ago
            > no one makes their compilers deterministic Go (gc) was designed for reproducible builds by default, so clearly that's not true, but you are right that it isn't the norm. Even the most widely recognized and used compilers, like gcc, clang, even rustc, are non-deterministic by default. Only if you work hard and control all the variables (e.g. -frandom-seed) can you make these compilers deterministic. It's fascinating that anyone on HN thinks that compilers converge on always being deterministic or always being non-deterministic. I thought we were supposed to know things about computers around here?
            • 9mo ago
• xigoi 9mo ago
  While they’re technically deterministic, they’re still chaotic, in the sense that changing irrelevant details in the input (such as writing “color” versus “colour”) can make the output completely different.