this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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That math process for adding the two numbers - there's nothing wrong with it at all. Estimate the total and come up with a range. Determine exactly what the last digit is. In the example, there's only one number in the range with 5 as the last digit. That must be the answer. Hell, I might even use that same method in my own head.
The poetry example, people use that one often enough, too. Come up with a couple of words you would have fun rhyming, and build the lines around those words. Nothing wrong with that, either.
These two processes are closer to "thought" than I previously imagined.
Well, it falls apart pretty easily. LLMs are notoriously bad at math. And even if it was accurate consistently, it's not exactly efficient, when a calculator from the 80s can do the same thing.
We have setups where LLMs can call external functions, but I think it would be cool and useful to be able to replace certain internal processes.
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As a side note though, while I don't think that it's a "true" thought process, I do think there's a lot of similarity with LLMs and the human subconscious. A lot of LLM behaviour reminds me of split brain patients.
And as for the math aspect, it does seem like it does math very similarly to us. Studies show that we think of small numbers as discrete quantities, but big numbers in terms of relative size, which seems like exactly what this model is doing.
I just don't think it's a particularly good way of doing mental math. Natural intuition in humans and gradient descent in LLMs both seem to create layered heuristics that can become pretty much arbitrarily complex, but it still makes more sense to follow an exact algorithm for some things.
1970's! The little blighters are even older than most people think.
Which is why I find it extra hilarious / extra infuriating that we've gone through all of these contortions and huge wastes of computing power and electricity to ultimately just make a computer worse at math.
Math is the one thing that computers are inherently good at. It's what they're for. Trying to use LLM's to perform it halfassedly is a completely braindead endeavor.
But who is going around asking these bots to specifically do math? Like in normal usage, Ive never once done that because I could just use a calculator or spreadsheet software if I need to get fancy lol