> The reason thinking seems to work is that it's just trying to find an optimum outside the local optimum, and the thinking trace helps find it.
Yes, I think I finally have an intuitive sense for that. But surely on a longer prompt it is still better for the final response if the thinking has at least brushed past all of the prompt?
One of the things I witnessed with xhigh is that while the thinking trace starts out intending an overview of the prompt, it actually can go fully down a rabbit hole off one of the first two or three bullet points even when it was seemingly intending not to.
It’s basically a lot like me. Gets sidetracked by the interesting bits.
Sure, but interrupting it isn't going to stop it's next output or thought from continuing the progress.
I guess if you're literally in a greenfield project, at the start, and it has nothing else to look at, then you're right; but everything I've been doing is taking existing stuff and improving it.
So my advice might have a bad edge case that only exists immediately. My setup is to tweak and improve on existing code bases so there's almost always something it can review, write to, read, etc that'll drive it to where I'm trying to go. So even in a greenfield project, it's start to do something rather than overthink everything. Those thought traces don't suddenly disappear.
There is the "muddled middle" of context that might get trapped in, but I don't think anything you can really do will stop that.
Thanks for the reply.
It is sort of frustrating and unnerving to me how much of this is dependent on application and usage, but it is occasionally fascinating.