> Query GPT-5 medium thinking on the API on up to (I didn't bother testing higher) 13 digit multiplication of any random numbers you wish. Then watch it get it exactly right.
I'm not sure if "on the API" here means "the LLM and nothing else." This is important because it's easy to overestimate the algorithm when you give it credit for work it didn't actually do.
In general, human developers have taken steps to make the LLM transcribe the text you entered into a classically-made program, such as a calculator app, python, or Wolfram Alpha. Without that, the LLM would have to use its (admittedly strong) powers of probabilistic fakery [0].
Why does it matter? Suppose I claimed I had taught a chicken to do square roots. Suspicious, you peer behind the curtain, and find that the chicken was trained to see symbols on a big screen and peck the matching keys on pocket calculator. Wouldn't you call me a fraud for that?
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Returning to the core argument:
1. "Reasoning" that includes algebra, syllogisms, deduction, etc. involves certain processes for reaching an answer. Getting a "good" answer through another route (like an informed guess) is not equivalent.
2. If an algorithm cannot do the algebra process, it is highly unlikely that it can do the others.
3. If an algorithm has been caught faking the algebra process through other means, any "good" results for other forms of logic should be considered inherently suspect.
4. LLMs are one of the algorithms in points 2 and 3.
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[0] https://www.mindprison.cc/p/why-llms-dont-ask-for-calculator...
>I'm not sure if "on the API" here means "the LLM and nothing else." This is important because it's easy to overestimate the algorithm when you give it credit for work it didn't actually do.
That's what I mean yes. There is no tool use for I what I mentioned.
>1. "Reasoning" that includes algebra, syllogisms, deduction, etc. involves certain processes for reaching an answer. Getting a "good" answer through another route (like an informed guess) is not equivalent.
Again if you cannot confirm that these 'certain processes' are present when humans do it but not when LLMs do it then your 'processes' might as well be made up.
And unless you concede humans are also not performing 'true algebra' or 'true reasoning', then your position is not even logically consistent. You can't eat your cake and have it.
No. I see AI people use this reasoning all the time and it's deeply misleading.
"You can't explain how humans do it, therefore you can't prove my statistical model doesn't do it" is kinda just the god of the gaps fallacy.
It abuses the fact that we don't understand how human cognition works, and therefore it's impossible to come up with a precise technical description. Of course you're going to win the argument, if you insist the other party do something currently impossible before you will accept their idea.
It's perfectly fine to use a heuristic for reasoning, as the other person did. LLMs don't reason by any reasonable heuristic.
>No. I see AI people use this reasoning all the time and it's deeply misleading. "You can't explain how humans do it, therefore you can't prove my statistical model doesn't do it" is kinda just the god of the gaps fallacy.
No, this is 'stop making claims you cannot actually support'.
>It abuses the fact that we don't understand how human cognition works, and therefore it's impossible to come up with a precise technical description.
Are you hearing yourself ? If you don't understand how human cognition works then any claims what is and isn't cognition should be taken with less than a grain of salt. You're in no position to be making such strong claims.
If you go ahead and make such claims, then you can be hardly surprised if people refuse to listen to you.
And by the way, we don't understand the internals of Large Neural Networks much better than human cognition.
>It's perfectly fine to use a heuristic for reasoning
You can use whatever heuristic you want and I can rightly tell you it holds no more weight than fiction.