I get the sense that ChatGPT crosses a complexity threshold where there’s no good way to describe how it works that satisfies everybody, and that’s leading to cyclical stories of the form “everyone else describes it wrong, so here’s my take.”

As a heuristic, I see descriptions falling into simple buckets:

- stories that talk about tokens

- stories that don’t talk about tokens

Anything discussing technical details such as tokens never seems to really get around to the emergent properties that are the crux of ChatGPTs importance of society. It’s like talking about humanity by describing the function of cells. Accurate, but incomplete.

On the other hand, higher-level takes happily discuss the potential implications of the emergent behaviours but err on the side of attributing magic to the process.

I haven’t read much, to be fair, but I don’t see anyone tying those topics together very well.