"Is my Large Language Model a Strange Loop?" by Zac Hatfield-Dodds (Strange Loop 2023)

Large Language Models aren't just the new hotness - they also offer fascinating glimpses of an alternative approach to software which is evolved instead of written. We'll explore emergent representations and composition of concepts from the inside outwards; and then turn around and consider some emergent behaviors and feedback loops from the outside of the training process. Whether you're curious about superposition, induction, self-evaluation or self-correction... by the end of the talk you'll have more questions than you started with!

Zac Hatfield-Dodds
Assurance Team Lead @ Anthropic

Zac (zhd.dev) is an Australian software engineer and researcher working in San Francisco, on AI safety research by day and on property-based testing by night. He co-maintains open-source projects such as Hypothesis, Trio, and Pytest; has been elected a Fellow of the Python Software Foundation; and swears that he'll finish writing his dissertation someday. If he's not at a computer, Zac is probably some combination of camping in a national park, reading a book or three, and munching on dark chocolate.

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Recorded Sept 21, 2023 at Strange Loop 2023 in St. Louis, MO.
https://thestrangeloop.com