How much is the process of a human child in grade school working through a 3-digit x 3-digit multiplication problem (123 * 456) like a GRPO model with thinking tokens doing the same?
Very little, if you bother to give the biology of the child at least a cursory glance.
Let’s take a short peek:
1. Assuming this is normal grade school, and inflicts math upon children earlier in the day, this is somewhere between 7 and 10/11 am, let’s say? At this point, depending on the age, gender, and maturity of the child, every neuron in their brain involved in math is likely off their midday peak in cognitive function.
If we move the class to later, a different subset of students will be at the peak.
As far as I am aware, GRPO models do not have such internal temporal rhythms driving their behavior that will shape their performance.
2. How well a given child performs will depend on how hungry they are. But not deterministically. If you trivially think each child is like a computer, you may think the rich kid who had a breakfast buffet before coming to school will do better than the half-starved child of a janitor, but that child might mind the lesson with greater intensity. Or not. It’s not something you can pre-calculate with any certainty.
While chip to chip variability is certainly known, I’m yet to hear of a chip deciding to do math better and faster than its fellow chips to prove a point. Or to do significantly worse because it’s distracted by the bird on the window sill.
What you are noticing is that there are limited ways to solve a 3x3 digit multiplication. Humans, having standardized the process, have now found a way to record it and plug it into correctly translated signal so the same accurate result can be had without using our own minds in the moment.
But where I’d not remotely be shocked if a kid from an uncontacted tribe figured out 3 digit multiplication to keep track of his stone collection, I’d be highly shocked if an H100 that was dumped in the trash by accident somehow figured out anything at all. In fact, if it manage to move any of its electrons around on its own, it would be a certified miracle.
And then we could talk about there being real similarity even though the specific atomic composition is different.*