alt Hacker NewsIt's surprising that Exponential Time Hypothesis would be false. Quoting a paper from 2022[1]:
> We prove that the time complexity of self-attention is necessarily quadratic in the input length, unless the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH) is false[...]
If OpenAI's proof is correct, does that mean self-attention can be implemented in sub-quadratic time? I.e. we could eventually have all the most advanced LLMs running on cheap hardware? To put it more playfully, is ETH being false actually bearish for Nvidia?
Replies
It's playful!
But it's also not even wrong, in the Pauli sense.
That makes me wonder if "I see your CS proof, how does this affect LLMs / nvidia stonk price???" being immediately self-described as "playful" ensures criticism looks cranky.
No, SETH implies quadratic time does not mean !SETH implies !quadratic time.