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Comment by qsort

12 hours ago

> A compiler is an algorithm and Claude isn't

"Algorithm" is not a word with a definition, so I can't say that you're wrong, but I struggle to see how you conceptualize "algorithm" in a way that does include a compiler but does not include a language model.

I think the distinction you're trying to draw is better captured by comparing inductive and deductive program synthesis.

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osti  12 hours ago

In computer science, one definition of algorithm is basically any program that runs on a turing machine. By that definition, any LLM is an algorithm.

mcv  12 hours ago

A compiler is a deterministic algorithm. Clause is not.

Of course Claude is an algorithm, but it's a very vague, fuzzy and complex one, where you have no way to determine what's going on inside, and no way to know up front what's going to come out.

biorach  12 hours ago

> "Algorithm" is not a word with a definition

what?

  • qsort  12 hours ago

    Rogers "Theory of Recursive Functions and Effective Computability", page 1, emphasis is the author's:

    § 1.1 The informal notion of algorithm

    In this chapter we give a formal (i.e., mathematically exact) characterization of recursive function. The concept is basic for the remainder of the book. It is one way of making precise the informal mathematical notion of function computable "by algorithm" or "by effective procedure". In this section, as a preliminary to the formal characterization, we discuss certain aspects of the informal notions of algorithm and function computable by algorithm as they occur in mathematics.

    I don't understand why you people act like you're stumped by literally, literally page 1 of computer science.

    • mmarx  11 hours ago

      > I don't understand why you people act like you're stumped by literally, literally page 1 of computer science.

      … and yet you didn't stop for a moment to consider that in a field as fast-moving as computer science, a concept which might not have had a formal definition in 1967 acquired one in the past 59 years? See, for example, Sipser's Introduction to the Theory of Computation, which has an entire section (3.3 in my 1997 print) titled “The Definiton of Algorithm”.

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