[dead]
Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
181–190 of 296 posts
Re: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
#182Is anthropomorphizing a real problem? From what I know, none of the serious LLM researchers believe it has anything to do with human reasoning, apart from Anthropic with their click-baity terminology like "LLM biology". It's just a metaphor. "Reasoning tokens" is simpler to say than "learned prompt augmentation tokens". I used to (and still do) anthropomorphize things long before LLMs, and I've seen my colleagues do…
> Is anthropomorphizing a real problem?
Completely rational and smart people talk to their pets, plants, their car, and other inanimate objects. This is not considered abnormal by most. It's just what we are wired to do. Some LLMs are uncannily good at tricking people into believing they are talking to a real person. So, there is that as well.
Some people are a bit freaked out by this or still somewhat in denial about LLMs being this good. But people have been yelling at their computers for as long as we've had them; so that ship sailed a long time ago. Trying to stop them doing that is probably a bit futile.
Whether people like this or not, LLMs are actually trained and fine tuned on real conversations and that's where a lot of this is re-enforced. Instead of fighting that, you can just lean into it and accept that communicating like you would with a person totally works and can actually be efficient even as it requires less effort and thinking on your side.
You can go all Jean Luc Picard on AIs and yell "Tea! Earl Grey Hot!" or you can just ask "I'd like a cup of tea, please". LLMs are good at remembering your tea preference. The please is of course completely redundant and should not affect the outcome. If you just want a cup of tea, you should be fine either way.
Re: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
#183Is anthropomorphizing a real problem? From what I know, none of the serious LLM researchers believe it has anything to do with human reasoning, apart from Anthropic with their click-baity terminology like "LLM biology". It's just a metaphor. "Reasoning tokens" is simpler to say than "learned prompt augmentation tokens". I used to (and still do) anthropomorphize things long before LLMs, and I've seen my colleagues do…
> Is anthropomorphizing a real problem? Yes. Actual real people believe that LLMs are actual, thinking, intelligences, perhaps even with consciousness. Your bit with MySQL is harmless because it's obvious that a database isn't a sentient lifeform. But LLMs can look like they're the real deal, and people believe it is. Using terminology like "thinking" and "reasoning" to describe what they do only reinforces this. Hav…
> Actual real people believe
The problem with rapists is mental development, not "those sexy tables and chairs and pots and everything".
It's not that if people do not understand metaphors we should stop using them. It 's not that if people faint when they hear words we should stop using them. It is not that the free unduly associations in a large shared by many "collective subconscious" should hinder us...
Re: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is anthropomorphizing a real problem? Yes. Actual real people believe that LLMs are actual, thinking, intelligences, perhaps even with consciousness. Your bit with MySQL is harmless because it's obvious that a database isn't a sentient lifeform. But LLMs can look like they're the real deal, and people believe it is. Using terminology like "thinking" and "reasoning" to describe what they do only reinforces this. Hav…
I think LLMs are pretty clearly intelligent in some sense of the word, and I don't know how one could ever confidently know they aren't conscious in some sense. That's not to say they're humanlike, just that people who think they know these ideas are ridiculous seem to be overreaching in the same way Steve Yegge seems to be overreaching
> conscious
The problem with that term is that it is hardly meaningful. Why would you use it? It does not add much, and no clarity, to what it is attributed to.
Re: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
#185Is anthropomorphizing a real problem? From what I know, none of the serious LLM researchers believe it has anything to do with human reasoning, apart from Anthropic with their click-baity terminology like "LLM biology". It's just a metaphor. "Reasoning tokens" is simpler to say than "learned prompt augmentation tokens". I used to (and still do) anthropomorphize things long before LLMs, and I've seen my colleagues do…
> Is anthropomorphizing a real problem? Of course it is. Anthropomorphizing is in our nature, but it doesn’t mean we have to entertain it and extend it to everything. A poet can anthropomorphize clouds beautifully and I’d enjoy his poem, but I want my pilot to not see clouds as rabbits when they decide if it’s safe to fly through them.
> but I want my pilot to not see clouds as rabbits
The poster meant it "within the metaphors". Tables are said to have 'legs': that does not confuse carpenters.
Re: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but if you're genuinely asking this not for trolling reasons then you should _really_ _really_ see a medical professional (not an insult). Online comment sections are not the correct place to unpack any of this. Which is indeed terminating this comment chain, but for good (and benevolent) reason. Doing anything else other than referring to a trained professional in a controlled context would potentially just f…
I'd argue that your colossal overreaction to a small invitation to discuss a somewhat interesting hypothetical is what warrants medical attention
I've been going through comment revisions here, and none of them really cut it, but all of them wasted time.
But regardless, you're using this as an insult. I did not.
There is no debate to be had here. Just a bad faith shouting match
Re: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think LLMs are pretty clearly intelligent in some sense of the word, and I don't know how one could ever confidently know they aren't conscious in some sense. That's not to say they're humanlike, just that people who think they know these ideas are ridiculous seem to be overreaching in the same way Steve Yegge seems to be overreaching
> conscious The problem with that term is that it is hardly meaningful. Why would you use it? It does not add much, and no clarity, to what it is attributed to.
And on the flip side if it hardly means anything why would you be so concerned when it’s uttered? Just ignore it
Re: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
#188Re: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but if you're genuinely asking this not for trolling reasons then you should _really_ _really_ see a medical professional (not an insult). Online comment sections are not the correct place to unpack any of this. Which is indeed terminating this comment chain, but for good (and benevolent) reason. Doing anything else other than referring to a trained professional in a controlled context would potentially just f…
Nice Unthinkable Topic you have there.
As I said, context.
In the right space with real people, worthy of a debate. On HN? No. Not like this. Not here. Not without filtering the participants for real human beings.
Re: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces (2025)
#190Is anthropomorphizing a real problem? From what I know, none of the serious LLM researchers believe it has anything to do with human reasoning, apart from Anthropic with their click-baity terminology like "LLM biology". It's just a metaphor. "Reasoning tokens" is simpler to say than "learned prompt augmentation tokens". I used to (and still do) anthropomorphize things long before LLMs, and I've seen my colleagues do…
Because plenty of people, even ones that should know better, really believe it's a conscious, thinking entity, not just some turn of phrase. I have a coworker that spends at least 10 hours a week arguing with his like you would with a conscious person. I've gently tried to explain it's like arguing with your compiler for giving you an incoherent error message - it's pointless. It doesn't understand, it can't understa…
> I've gently tried to explain it's like arguing with your compiler for giving you an incoherent error message - it's pointless.
Unless doing so changed the compiler output, which is what happens when you say different things to an LLM.