[Brystephor]

Forcing reasoning is analogous to requiring a student to show their work when solving a problem if im understanding the paper correctly.

> you’d have to either memorize the entire answer before speaking or come up with a simple pattern you could do while reciting that takes significantly less brainpower

This part i dont understand. Why would coming up with an algorithm (e.g. a simple pattern) and reciting it be impossible? The paper doesnt mention the models coming up with the algorithm at all AFAIK. If the model was able to come up with the pattern required to solve the puzzles and then also execute (e.g. recite) the pattern, then that'd show understanding. However the models didn't. So if the model can answer the same question for small inputs, but not for big inputs, then doesnt that imply the model is not finding a pattern for solving the answer but is more likely pulling from memory? Like, if the model could tell you fibbonaci numbers when n=5 but not when n=10, that'd imply the numbers are memorized and the pattern for generation of numbers is not understood.

[qarl]

> The paper doesnt mention the models coming up with the algorithm at all AFAIK.

And that's because they specifically hamstrung their tests so that the LLMs were not "allowed" to generate algorithms.

If you simply type "Give me the solution for Towers of Hanoi for 12 disks" into chatGPT it will happily give you the answer. It will write program to solve it, and then run that program to produce the answer.

But according to the skeptical community - that is "cheating" because it's using tools. Nevermind that it is the most effective way to solve the problem.

https://chatgpt.com/share/6845f0f2-ea14-800d-9f30-115a3b644e...

[zoul]

This is not about finding the most effective solution, it’s about showing that they “understand” the problem. Could they write the algorithm if it were not in their training set?

[Too]

How can one know that's not coming from the pre-trained data. The paper is trying to evaluate whether the LLM has general problem solving ability.

[jsnell]

The paper doesn't mention it because either the researchers did not care to check the outputs manually, or reporting what was in the outputs would have made it obvious what their motives were.

When this research has been reproduced, the "failures" on the Tower of Hanoi are the model printing out a bunch of steps, saying there is no point in doing it thousands of times more. And they they'd either output an the algorithm for printing the rest in words or code

[godelski]

It's really easy to make a billion dollars. Just make a really useful app and sell it. There's no point explaining the rest since it's so trivial.