Yes they do…? Who cares if they just predict the next token? The outcome is that they can invent new abstractions. You could claim that the invention of this new idea is a combination of an LLM and a harness, but that combination can solve logic puzzles and invent abstractions. If a really large spinning wheel could invent proofs that were previously unsolved, that would be a wildly amazing spinning wheel. I view LLMs similarly. It is just fancy autocomplete, but look what we can do with it!
replySaid differently, what is prediction but composition projected forward through time/ideas?
Ask an LLM to invent a new word and post it here, I will be waiting. You will see that it simply combines words already in the training data.
replyI'm not sure what the point of this exercise is. My prompt to ChatGPT: "Create a new English word with a reasonably sounding definition. That word must not come up in a Google search." Two attempts did come up in a search, the third was "Thaleniq (noun)". Definition: The brief feeling that a conversation has permanently changed your opinion of someone, even if nothing dramatic was said. Nothing in Google. There, a new word, not sure it proves or disproves anything. Or is it time to move the goal posts?
replyWhy is everyone who responds to this with a real example immediately flagged/dead?
replyHN autokills LLM generated comments. People don’t seem to believe this, but there’s proof for you.
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replySplifket
replyDefinition: That highly specific, short-lived burst of nervous energy that makes you accidentally drop a small object (like a pen, a guitar pick, or a piece of LEGO) immediately after picking it up.
Does a random sequence of letters qualify as a new word?
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reply"Who cares if they just predict the next token?"
replyExactly. I also only write one word at a time. Who knows what is going on in order to come up with that word.
One might argue that the composition of higher abstractions is the next token predicted after "here is a higher abstraction:"
reply"Predicting the next token" is meaningless. Every process that has any sort of behavior, including a human writing, can be modeled by some function from past behavior to probability distribution of next action. Viewed this way, literally everything is just "predicting" the next action to be taken according to that probability distribution.
replyThe most likely series of next tokens when a competent mathematician has written half of a correct proof is the correct next half of the proof. I've never seen anyone who claims "LLMs just predict the next token" give any definition of what that means that would include LLMs, but exclude the mathematician.
Show me on the anatomical prop where the magical "real reasoning" gland is.
replyHow sure are you that this is correct?
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