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The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

claude.com

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Re: The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

#311

This kind of stuff just makes me think nobody has any clue how these things work. Why do I need a system prompt at all? Why do I need another black box AIs to review the code of the black box AI why can’t these things get code right the first time. Why is the best “coding model” in the world still making up APIs that don’t exist and do seemingly random unreleased changes that it wasn’t prompted for. Why do these mode…

1. To protect the company

2. Meta tokensations of LLMs. Imagine entire output of the LLM as just a single token, so they inspect previous one.

3. Non-deterministic output.

4. Benchmaxxing. Mobile phones are doing the same thing.

Re: The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sort of crystallized a bit of the human thought process a) LLMs don't think. They predict a most probable sequence of language tokens. Huge difference there. b) Whatever LLMs do doesn't model human behavior whatsoever. LLMs are basically very fancy logistic regressors. I.e., it's a mathematical abstraction first and foremost.

When I see these sorts of debates about LLMs thinking, its rarely a disagreement about what LLMs do. Its almost always over how 'thinking' is defined and the two sides use different definitions but don't actually communicate to each other what those definitions are because they assume the other side is using the same one. The loosest definition of thinking is along the lines of anything that can process information i…

It has nothing to do with thinking or consciousness.

There is a common misconception that LLM are simply a "statistical process" that doesn't feature any abstract conception of the tokens it is predicting. There are studies that show that such features do exist - that there is discernible structure built into the weights - and that the process of inference is a very rich one.

The statistical process exists but it is the substrate in which the model is implemented - or more accurately - grown.

If you can predict Magnus Carlsen's next move then you are just as good at chess as Magnus - and being that good absolutely does require reasoning.

If you can predict the solution to an open Erdos problem that stumped hundreds of people for decades...

Re: The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

#313

This kind of stuff just makes me think nobody has any clue how these things work. Why do I need a system prompt at all? Why do I need another black box AIs to review the code of the black box AI why can’t these things get code right the first time. Why is the best “coding model” in the world still making up APIs that don’t exist and do seemingly random unreleased changes that it wasn’t prompted for. Why do these mode…

Thank you. Some days I feel like I’m going crazy.

I use plenty of AI. As best I can tell just believing my own eyes, everything is stagnant except the prices.

Which is fine… but the boosters shout “OMG EVERYTHING IS CHANGED YOU ARE BEHIND AND ALL PREVIOUS STUDIES ARE INVALID NOW” every Tuesday.

Re: The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. For one thing, many animals that lack language can still navigate a very complicated natural world using concepts of phenomena like gravity, distance, speed, the threat level of another animal, etc. without needing a linguistic expression of those things. Images and music can convey ideas without language. Math can convey ideas without language. Physically taking apart an object and putting it ba…

> For one thing, many animals that lack language can still navigate a very complicated natural world So can a cruise missile. Also I think there's like separate part of the brain for that > using concepts of phenomena like gravity, distance, speed, the threat level of another animal, etc. without needing a linguistic expression of those things.* FWIW, AFAIK we haven't shown the ability to think in concept exists anyw…

Ok, but it is clear the parent meant language as in words like english or tamil. If you expand language to include anything that can convey idea then the argument is meaningless and its a null agreement.

Re: The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

#315
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until recently I thought "load-bearing seam" was a satirical exaggeration - I'd seen both claudisms independently but never combined. But a couple of days ago it hit me with "The key structural point first: the only load-bearing seam is [...]"

It's language and speech patterns that seem designed to trick readers into believing that claims are correct, even when the claims aren't based on anything and are possibly wrong. It was rewarded for this during training for some reason. Alternative theory: The LLMs only way to "think" about abstract concepts is through language, and this leaks into into conversation it has with humans. But humans generally prefer to…

All of these rhetorical devices to make the assertion seem authoritative and correct are derived from academia

Re: The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

#317
Everyone is starting to express themselves as LLMs. I fell prey to having LLMs “copyedit” some of my words when I wanted to make sure I got my point across, but I am trying to stop that. Online in particular, I see a style which I call “probabilistic English”, infused with odd hip expressions.

I thought it was only a problem for English communication, for which we have little care, but the same applies to code now. More and more code appears to be “probabilistic code”, homogenized to what is most common in the data LLMs were trained on.

Re: The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. For one thing, many animals that lack language can still navigate a very complicated natural world using concepts of phenomena like gravity, distance, speed, the threat level of another animal, etc. without needing a linguistic expression of those things. Images and music can convey ideas without language. Math can convey ideas without language. Physically taking apart an object and putting it ba…

> For one thing, many animals that lack language can still navigate a very complicated natural world So can a cruise missile. Also I think there's like separate part of the brain for that > using concepts of phenomena like gravity, distance, speed, the threat level of another animal, etc. without needing a linguistic expression of those things.* FWIW, AFAIK we haven't shown the ability to think in concept exists anyw…

Have you ever had a professor or mentor walk you through some experiences as a way to help you understand some complex concepts? I guess language is used in that but the ideas are conveyed by the process not the language.

And I rather disagree that mathematics is language, when I did maths there was a distinct difference from understanding a thing and then writing it down.

And modalities that don’t include “where is this body in space” or “I am lonely” don’t seem to capture some essential elements of sensory experience. It is a mistake to separate the interior from the exterior in the analysis of how our thinking works.

I think the folks saying these systems have a kind of intelligence, but a non-human kind are correct - whether that can lead to an independent intelligence that can stay stable sane and focused for weeks or months as many people can, without some sort of embodied cognition providing over all wellness checks to keep the system of thinking sane, remains to be seen. In the meantime, in my hands, they can do very nice dataviz programming to make complex systems much more transparent, even as just throwing all the ops data at them and asking what’s up is, several years in, still not worth doing.

Re: The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The annoying issue sometimes is that while it is faster to do it yourself, the context of the LLM is not updated. So now you have you to mention that and mentioning it is a bit fuzzier sometimes than the LLM simply doing the rename itself, so the context stays up to date.

The llm will figure it out when it relooks at the file.

This feels like a good place for tighter integration between editors and agents. The editor could notify the agent of user authored changes.

Re: The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who do not have any words in their heads at all when they think, and there doesn't seem to be any reason to disbelieve them. It may have been proven or at least observed in fMRI. Some people think in visuals. I think some of this was discovered somewhat recently

And some people can’t see any pictures in their minds! My partner is one of these people. We both really enjoy reading fiction books, often with a fantasy or sci-fi bent and it genuinely amazes me that they can experience these books in a way that feels wholly alien to me. The fun of reading to me is constructing the world in my minds eye and turning the words on the page into a visual experience only found in my min…

> This is a reason why many people get upset when a movie adaptation is made

I still haven't watched the Dune movies because of this reason. I liked the book a lot, and had a very personal image of what the world looked like, and was afraid to lose it. Unfortunately, by now, I've seen many video clips on social media, and my internal imagery has already been poisoned. Might as well watch the movies at this point.

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