logoalt Hacker News

ceroxylon • today at 4:13 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

I am not quite saying "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", but I know more math now than in any point in my life because I want to understand how LLMs work.

I understand there are many types of math and the mathematicians don't all want to sit around and do KV cache and gradient descent things, but surely a percentage are as interested as I am and can contribute to this new emerging field? I would wager that Xl+1=Bl Xl+Cl ℱl (Al Xl) makes much more sense in their mind than mine.


Replies

itsalwaysgood • today at 4:21 PM

This is the best attitude to have about the current state. Unless you have some dramatically different sensible solution (and you probably don't when it comes to technology, because it seems to spread for reasons that would eliminate other sensible solutions) that will catch on and take over and replace AI: it's going to continue to mature as long as it's mostly useful to everyone. And AI isn't even a new industry, it has been maturing for quite a while, which adds more weight to the argument that having an attitude that adapts to technology (unless you wish to go solo) is a 'better' fit.

The dramatic solution can never be: 'we should all just want to do it this way because it felt better to me'. That never seems to work, from what I've seen. So there is a lot of public discourse, arguing, to determine if 'doing things the old way' is perhaps more better. And if not, maybe we just shed a tear and move on (to look for a better fit).

j2kun • today at 4:59 PM

> I know more math now than in any point in my life because I want to understand how LLMs work

The implication here is that you wasted your time learning that math, and the fact you learned that will not actually help you contribute to anything.

Now maybe you are closer to understanding the feelings expressed in the article?