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Arithmetic Without Numbers – How LLMs Do Math

alvaro-videla.com

21–30 of 43 posts

Re: Arithmetic Without Numbers – How LLMs Do Math

#21
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do. I asked CharGPT for 327 x 48 and it used the "ChatGPT Instruments" calculator. Previously it used to run Python scripts, and may still do for more complex calculations.

What's interesting is that one one hand LLM pumps are claiming a path to AGI.. while on the other hand, they are duct-taping in deterministic plugins for specific prompt types they find it better to offload... In X years is it just going to be a thin OS-like layer where a majority of work is being handled by other "programs".

> In X years is it just going to be a thin OS-like layer where a majority of work is being handled by other "programs"

That is my hopeful ideal

Re: Arithmetic Without Numbers – How LLMs Do Math

#22

i dont like this new trend of generating html with ai to say something. i think some guy from anthropic started this trend . now everything looks the same and i can no longer read on kindle.

Everything looked the same before too. One of the same 6 Jekyll temples etc. Fads in design come and go

Re: Arithmetic Without Numbers – How LLMs Do Math

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is that one one hand LLM pumps are claiming a path to AGI.. while on the other hand, they are duct-taping in deterministic plugins for specific prompt types they find it better to offload... In X years is it just going to be a thin OS-like layer where a majority of work is being handled by other "programs".

> In X years is it just going to be a thin OS-like layer where a majority of work is being handled by other "programs" That is my hopeful ideal

In which case it’s just a neat extension of search

Re: Arithmetic Without Numbers – How LLMs Do Math

#25
post #10

I assumed it wrote Python or some sort of other code.

writing and calling an entire python setup seems massive overkill, surely just have an internal way of calling a simple calculator function would be millions of times faster

Probably but the cost of running a short lived python interpreter to run "print (100 + 200)" is likely negligable compared to the cost of running the language model itself

Re: Arithmetic Without Numbers – How LLMs Do Math

#26
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do. I asked CharGPT for 327 x 48 and it used the "ChatGPT Instruments" calculator. Previously it used to run Python scripts, and may still do for more complex calculations.

What's interesting is that one one hand LLM pumps are claiming a path to AGI.. while on the other hand, they are duct-taping in deterministic plugins for specific prompt types they find it better to offload... In X years is it just going to be a thin OS-like layer where a majority of work is being handled by other "programs".

> while on the other hand, they are duct-taping in deterministic plugins for specific prompt types they find it better to offload

So, in essence, just like human beings?

Re: Arithmetic Without Numbers – How LLMs Do Math

#27
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do. I asked CharGPT for 327 x 48 and it used the "ChatGPT Instruments" calculator. Previously it used to run Python scripts, and may still do for more complex calculations.

What's interesting is that one one hand LLM pumps are claiming a path to AGI.. while on the other hand, they are duct-taping in deterministic plugins for specific prompt types they find it better to offload... In X years is it just going to be a thin OS-like layer where a majority of work is being handled by other "programs".

That doesn't seem very persuasive. The one example of a non-A GI we have, humans, does the same thing. We've been offloading arithmetic for at least 4000 years.

Re: Arithmetic Without Numbers – How LLMs Do Math

#29
post #19

One could use many things to do arithmetic: - color wheel - oxidation reactions - interpretive dance - migratory patterns of curlew sandpipers Whether one should is another question

“You know how when you see prime numbers, they appear red, but when they're twin primes, they're pink and smell like gasoline?”

Re: Arithmetic Without Numbers – How LLMs Do Math

#30
post #13

There is a beautiful MathOverflow thread on how mathematicians imagine concepts, https://mathoverflow.net/questions/38639/thinking-and-explai... . Very often it involves spatial thinking. Vide one example there: > Once I mentioned this phenomenon to Andy Gleason; he immediately responded that when he taught algebra courses, if he was discussing cyclic subgroups of a group, he had a mental image of group elements brea…

> There is a beautiful MathOverflow thread on how mathematicians imagine concepts, https://mathoverflow.net/questions/38639/thinking-and-explai....

And obviously Terrence Tao is up there in the response.

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