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Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

kyunghyuncho.me

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Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#81

Post by fc417fc802 »

timdellinger wrote: post #55
roger_ wrote: post #27

An aside: please use proper capitalization. With this article I found myself backtracking thinking I’d missed a word, which was very annoying. Not sure what the authors intention was with that decision but please reconsider.

an opinion, and a falsifiable hypothesis: call me old-fasahioned, but two spaces after a period will solve this problem if people insist on all-lower-case. this also helps distinguish between abbreviations such as st. martin's and the ends of sentences. i'll bet that the linguistics experimentalists have metrics that quantify reading speed measurements as determined by eye tracking experiments, and can verify this.

( do away with both capitalization and periods ( use tabs to separate sentences ( problem solved [( i'm only kind of joking here ( i actually think that would work pretty well ))] )))

( or alternatively use nested sexp to delineate paragraphs, square brackets for parentheticals [( this turned out to be an utterly cursed idea, for the record )] )

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#82

Post by fc417fc802 »

jppope wrote: post #46
roger_ wrote: post #27

An aside: please use proper capitalization. With this article I found myself backtracking thinking I’d missed a word, which was very annoying. Not sure what the authors intention was with that decision but please reconsider.

Language evolves. Capitalization is an artifact of a period where capitalizing the first letter made a lot of sense for the medium (parchment/paper). Modern culture is abandoning it for speed efficiency on keyboards or digital keyboards. A purist would say that we should still be using all capitals like they did in Greek/Latin which again was related to the medium. I'll likely continue using Capitalization as a prefe…

> we use it to express conventions in programming

Interestingly programming is the one place where I ditch it almost entirely (at least in my personal code bases).

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#83

Post by svachalek »

mempko wrote: post #80
roger_ wrote: post #27

An aside: please use proper capitalization. With this article I found myself backtracking thinking I’d missed a word, which was very annoying. Not sure what the authors intention was with that decision but please reconsider.

At least for now, maybe this is the best way to tell if a text is written by an LLM or a person. An LLM will capitalize!

Unless you tell it not to...

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#84

Post by cassepipe »

mempko wrote: post #80
roger_ wrote: post #27

An aside: please use proper capitalization. With this article I found myself backtracking thinking I’d missed a word, which was very annoying. Not sure what the authors intention was with that decision but please reconsider.

At least for now, maybe this is the best way to tell if a text is written by an LLM or a person. An LLM will capitalize!

Please ChatGPT, decapitalize that comment above for me

    at least for now, maybe this is the best way to tell if a text is written by an llm or a person. an llm will capitalize!

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#85

Post by Izkata »

meowface wrote: post #39
jiggawatts wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fad associated with AI, popularised by Sam Altman especially. It's the new black turtleneck that everyone is wearing, but will swear upon their mother's life isn't because they're copying Steve Jobs.

Twitter and all forms of instant messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, Discord, and the older ones like AIM/MSN/ICQ) have normalized it for many years. Sam is just one of the few large company CEOs to tweet in the style other Twitter users usually use. He's adopting the native culture rather than setting a trend. Sam still uses capitalization in all of his essays, as do most people (including young people). In essays, like this…

> Twitter and all forms of instant messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, Discord, and the older ones like AIM/MSN/ICQ) have normalized it for many years.

Half true. In SMS it was just easier, but in IM it mostly was a thing because the IM client's message boundaries acted as markers for beginning/end of sentence, making the formatting unnecessary. That's why using correct capitalization and periods for single sentences came to be associated with a more formal/serious tone, it was unnecessary so including it meant you wanted to emphasize it.

Even back then we'd use regular formatting outside of IM or when sending multiple sentences in a single message.

> He's adopting the native culture rather than setting a trend.

If this was the intent, it's really coming off as that "Hello, fellow kids" meme, rather than genuine.

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#86

Post by albedoa »

llm_nerd wrote: post #52
meowface wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter and all forms of instant messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, Discord, and the older ones like AIM/MSN/ICQ) have normalized it for many years. Sam is just one of the few large company CEOs to tweet in the style other Twitter users usually use. He's adopting the native culture rather than setting a trend. Sam still uses capitalization in all of his essays, as do most people (including young people). In essays, like this…

>Sam is just one of the few large company CEOs to tweet in the style other Twitter users usually use. Just looked at the algorithmic feed on Twitter to makes sure trends haven't shifted overnight, and zero people in that sample of hundreds of tweets used all lower case in the tweets. Not in science. Not in AI. Not in maths or politics or entertainment or media. Sam is trying to bE dIFFERENT. He isn't adopting a norm…

> Not in science. Not in AI. Not in maths or politics or entertainment or media.

That is the professional Twitter class and is not at all representative of the norm. Click through to the replies. Sentence case is probably in the vast minority.

I promise you that it is neither a fad nor started with the AI bro.

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#87

Post by marssaxman »

meowface wrote: post #73
bowsamic wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I will fight this trend to the death. Thankfully I don't like to surround myself with philistines

The war is already over. I 100% agree lowercase in longform essays is ridiculous, but I think for everything aside from essays, articles, papers, long emails, and some percentage of multi-paragraph site comments, lowercase is absolutely going to be the default online in 20 years.

So "everything that matters will continue to be written normally, but throwaway chatter will be written casually, where the specific features connoting casualness are a matter of ever-changing fashion"? Thinking back on '90s-era IRC chats, I suppose it was ever thus.

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#88

Post by bowsamic »

meowface wrote: post #73
bowsamic wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I will fight this trend to the death. Thankfully I don't like to surround myself with philistines

The war is already over. I 100% agree lowercase in longform essays is ridiculous, but I think for everything aside from essays, articles, papers, long emails, and some percentage of multi-paragraph site comments, lowercase is absolutely going to be the default online in 20 years.

> for everything aside from essays, articles, papers, long emails, and some percentage of multi-paragraph site comment

That’s already the only stuff worth reading and always has been. No loss then

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#89

Post by bowsamic »

meowface wrote: post #70
bowsamic wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since the extra effort to hit shift when typing on a phone keyboard is a bit higher, and the additional effort to go back and fix any typos that happen due to trying to capitalize things is also higher compared to using a traditional keyboard I'm a bit confused about this. Do people turn off auto capitalisation on their phones? I very rarely have to press shift on my phone

I and everyone I know turns it off. On many platforms and in many cultures, capitalization often implies Solemness or even rudeness in 1-on-1 conversations, and otherwise comes across as being out of touch in other kinds of communication.

I’ve never encountered anyone turning it off. I avoid socialising with people who think it’s rude to use capitalisation.

Re: Softmax forever, or why I like softmax

#90

Post by tomsmeding »

4ggr0 wrote: post #45
jiggawatts wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fad associated with AI, popularised by Sam Altman especially. It's the new black turtleneck that everyone is wearing, but will swear upon their mother's life isn't because they're copying Steve Jobs.

i don't want to press the shift-key everytime i need a capitalized letter on my phone and i disable auto-correct because it constantly messes with native languages etc. wasn't aware that this makes me a steve jobs copier :( EDIT: people are seriously so emotionally invested in capitalization that i get downvoted into minus, jeez.

For completeness: I also disable all autocorrect/autocomplete on mobile because it's more trouble than it's worth, but I leave auto-capitalisation on. This is a thing, they're independent settings.
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