Comment by ffsm8

1 day ago

It's mind boggling if you think about the fact they're essential "just" statistical models

It really contextualizes the old wisdom of Pythagoras that everything can be represented as numbers / math is the ultimate truth

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ffsm8

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glemion43  1 day ago

They are not just statistical models

They create concepts in latent space which is basically compression which forces this

  • jrmg  16 hours ago

    You’re describing a complex statistical model.

    • glemion43  12 hours ago

      Debatable I would argue. It's definitely not 'just a statistical model's and I would argue that the compression into this space fixes potential issues differently than just statistics.

      But I'm not a mathematics expert if this is the real official definition I'm fine with it. But are you though?

      1 reply →

  • mmooss  15 hours ago

    What is "latent space"? I'm wary of metamagical descriptions of technology that's in a hype cycle.

    • DoctorOetker  13 hours ago

      its a statistical term, a latent variable is one that is either known to exist, or believed to exist, and then estimated.

      consider estimating the position of an object from noisy readings. One presumes that position to exist in some sense, and then one can estimate it by combining multiple measurements, increasing positioning resolution.

      its any variable that is postulated or known to exist, and for which you run some fitting procedure

    • glemion43  12 hours ago

      I'm disappointed that you had to add the 'metamagical' to your question tbh

      It doesn't matter if ai is in a hype cycle or not it doesn't change how a technology works.

      Check out the yt videos from 1blue3brown he explains LLMs quite well. .your first step is the word embedding this vector space represents the relationship between words. Father - grandfather. The vector which makes a father a grandfather is the same vector as mother to grandmother.

      You the use these word vectors in the attention layer to create a n dimensional space aka latent space which basically reflects a 'world' the LLM walks through. This makes the 'magic' of LLMs.

      Basically a form of compression by having higher dimensions reflecting kind a meaning.

      Your brain does the same thing. It can't store pixels so when you go back to some childhood environment like your old room, you remember it in some efficient (brain efficient) way. Like the 'feeling' of it.

      That's also the reason why an LLM is not just some statistical parrot.

      4 replies →