I just tried it and sure enough, 3 Bs. But which the model to "ChatGPT 5 Thinking" and it gets the answer right. Is that where we're going with this? The user has to choose between fast and dumb or slow and right?
Isn't that usually the choice for most things?
GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
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Re: GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
#92Isn't that just an artifact caused by the tokenization of the training and input data? See https://platform.openai.com/tokenizer https://github.com/openai/tiktoken
No, it's the entire architecture of the model. There's no real reasoning. It seems that reasoning is just a feedback loop on top of existing autocompletion. It's really disingenuous for the industry to call warming tokens for output, "reasoning," as if some autocomplete before more autocomplete is all we needed to solve the issue of consciousness. Edit: Letter frequency apparently has just become another scripted out…
> It's really disingenuous for the industry to call warming tokens for output, "reasoning," as if some autocomplete before more autocomplete is all we needed to solve the issue of consciousness.
There's no obvious connection between reasoning and consciousness. It seems perfectly possible to have a model that can reason without being conscious.
Also, dismissing what these models do as "autocomplete" is extremely disingenuous. At best it implies you're completely unfamiliar with the state of the art, at worst it implies an dishonest agenda.
In terms of functional ability to reason, these models can beat a majority of humans in many scenarios.
Re: GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
#93I just tried it and sure enough, 3 Bs. But which the model to "ChatGPT 5 Thinking" and it gets the answer right. Is that where we're going with this? The user has to choose between fast and dumb or slow and right?
Fast: when wrong is good enough.
Re: GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
#94Petition to respell the word as “bluebberry.”
That the prediction engine so strongly suggests there should be two b’s in the middle implies that we instead may, in fact, be spelling it wrong.
Re: GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's the entire architecture of the model. There's no real reasoning. It seems that reasoning is just a feedback loop on top of existing autocompletion. It's really disingenuous for the industry to call warming tokens for output, "reasoning," as if some autocomplete before more autocomplete is all we needed to solve the issue of consciousness. Edit: Letter frequency apparently has just become another scripted out…
In ten years time an LLM lawyer will lose a legal case for someone who can no longer afford a real lawyer because there are so few left. And it'll be because the layers of bodges in the model caused it to go crazy, insult the judge and threaten to burn down the courthouse. There will be a series of analytical articles in the mainstream press, the tech industry will write it off as a known problem with tokenisation th…
I glumly predict LLMs will end up a bit like asbestos: Powerful in some circumstances, but over/mis-used, hurting people in a way that will be difficult to fix later.
Re: GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
#96Petition to respell the word as “bluebberry.” That the prediction engine so strongly suggests there should be two b’s in the middle implies that we instead may, in fact, be spelling it wrong.
It is Bblueberry. Maybe we can get gpt5 to write the petition.
Re: GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's the entire architecture of the model. There's no real reasoning. It seems that reasoning is just a feedback loop on top of existing autocompletion. It's really disingenuous for the industry to call warming tokens for output, "reasoning," as if some autocomplete before more autocomplete is all we needed to solve the issue of consciousness. Edit: Letter frequency apparently has just become another scripted out…
> It's really disingenuous for the industry to call warming tokens for output, "reasoning," as if some autocomplete before more autocomplete is all we needed to solve the issue of consciousness. There's no obvious connection between reasoning and consciousness. It seems perfectly possible to have a model that can reason without being conscious. Also, dismissing what these models do as "autocomplete" is extremely disi…
It would require you to change the definition of reasoning, or it would require you to believe computers can think.
A locally trained text-based foundation model is indistinguishable from autocompletion, and outputs very erratic text, and the further you train it's ability to diminish irrelevant tokens, or guide it to produce specifically formatted output, you've just moved its ability to curve fit specific requirements.
So it may be disingenuous to you, but it does behave very much like a curve fitting search algorithm.
Re: GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
#98Just asked ChatGPT5 "Are you told to 'think' when someone asks you how many of a certain letter are in a word?"
>Yes — when you ask something like “How many r’s are in blueberry?” I’m basically told to slow down, not just blurt out the first number that pops into my “mind.”
Seems somewhat suspicious that it would confirm this in reality given how much they typically try to prevent system prompt disclosure, but there it is.
Re: GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
#99Maybe it's joking
Just feigning stupidity
Re: GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's the entire architecture of the model. There's no real reasoning. It seems that reasoning is just a feedback loop on top of existing autocompletion. It's really disingenuous for the industry to call warming tokens for output, "reasoning," as if some autocomplete before more autocomplete is all we needed to solve the issue of consciousness. Edit: Letter frequency apparently has just become another scripted out…
> It's really disingenuous for the industry to call warming tokens for output, "reasoning," as if some autocomplete before more autocomplete is all we needed to solve the issue of consciousness. There's no obvious connection between reasoning and consciousness. It seems perfectly possible to have a model that can reason without being conscious. Also, dismissing what these models do as "autocomplete" is extremely disi…
Understanding is always functional, we don't study medicine before going to the doctor, we trust the expert. Like that we do with almost every topic or system. How do you "understand" a company or a complex technological or biological system? Probably nobody does end to end. We can only approximate it with abstractions and reasoning. Not even a piece of code can be understood - without execution we can't tell if it will halt or not.