Terry Tao: "LLMs are simpler than you think" | Hacker News Reader

Terry Tao: "LLMs are simpler than you think"

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15 pointsIanjit9 comments

LLMs are a lot dumber than you think too.

They are language prediction models, not logical deduction engines.

It says so right in the name. Expecting logic or reason or decision making is a gross mis-application.

My impression from Tao’s answers is that there is a gulf between the reality of what mathematicians actually do and the benchmarks that the frontier labs tout. It doesn’t seem trivial to close that gap and create an LLM that can replace mathematicians.

Why do you sound surprised by this?

"there is a gulf between the reality of what mathematicians actually do and the benchmarks that the frontier labs tout."

A lot of peoples wealth is on the line, I wish people opened their eyes rather than believing benchmarks blindly.

Humans are a lot dumber than you think too.

They are self-replicating machines, not logical deduction engines.

It says so right in the name. Expecting logic or reason or decision making is a gross mis-application.

I think people make comments on LLMs not being smart in reaction to the comments from the leaders of AI labs that LLMs are so smart they could/will lead to mass unemployment.

The word human (usually) refer to all members of the Homo genus. The name Homo sapiens means 'wise man'. Except for the clever use of thumbs our genus successfully managed to apply logic consistently in order to survive. Human reasoning produced tools, technology and science. So, no, it doesn't say it in the name. We occasionally are dumb, or make dumb comments, but the expectations are high.

So it's understandable why dumb humans would expect to replace workers with AI --- which struggles with basic math and reasoning, has zero real world experience and can't tell fact from fiction?

Language is just a form, what exactly is encoded inside of the model can be very different. And to encode logical reasoning inside of the weights with activation functions is more than possible.

Models solving IMO level problems imo proves it.

I also think you greatly overestimate human intelligence, the fact we got AGI is nothing but barely side effect of evolution.

Isn’t this what Tao is addressing in the link, that LLMs haven’t encoded reasoning? Success in IMO is misleading because they are synthetic problems with known solutions that are subject to contamination (answers to similar questions are available in the textbooks and online).

He also discusses his view on the similarity and differences between mathematics and natural language.Tao says mathematics is driven entirely by efficiency, so presumably using natural language to do mathematics is a step backwards.

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