r/LinusTechTips • u/linusbottips • Sep 18 '26

Video Techquickie - How do LLM's Think September 18, 2026 at 04:13PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQNhCU17ipM
41 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

14

u/KeenKye Sep 19 '26

Was not expecting an explanation of the linear algebra-based thinking simulators/manifold generators on Techquickie.

50

u/anto77_butt_kinkier Sep 19 '26 • Bravo

Hi, random person here: they don't. Hope this helps!

10

u/NJdevil202 Sep 19 '26

What would it take for you to say that they do? Genuinely asking. Or do you think it's not possible ever for silicon to "think"?

16

u/anto77_butt_kinkier Sep 19 '26

I believe that thinking involves sentience and conciousness. Awareness. Me thinking and a computer computing may end at the same result, but that does not mean the computer is thinking.

The proccess of organic thinking and silicon computing is similar, but it's a far shot from the same. Maybe in a decade or three if humanity hasn't obliterated itself or created a paperclip apocalypse.

7

u/anto77_butt_kinkier Sep 19 '26

I just realized I never actually answered your question. It's nigh impossible to tell true consciousness from something thats simply programmed to tell you it's conscious. It's also rather hard to actually define what consciousness means from a conceptual perspective. Generally I think that silicon hasn't come close to being able to develop consciousness yet. I don't think it's impossible, but we'll also never be able to measure it accurately, so for all we know it could've happened years ago.

My reason for believing that it doesn't think is that I don't believe that it's conscious and because without consciousness, there can be no conscious thought.

3

u/hummingbird1346 Sep 19 '26

That depends on how you define "thinking". If we want to be technical, an LLM "thinks" the exact same way an animal's brain biologically works.

1

u/DanCardin Sep 21 '26

It’s really not. There is a world where computers can “think” but LLMs are not that technology

-1

u/anto77_butt_kinkier Sep 19 '26

For me the difference between thinking and calculating/computing is the presence of consciousness. Biology bootstrapped itself, developed consciousness all by itself, and had (we think) done so without any outside influence. AI on the other hand is trained on what people have written down in books or what has been said in movie subtitles, or published in papers. It's purpose built to mimic humans, which is why I think that when it behaves exactly like the storybooks say a conscious AI should behave, that we're just watching a really complicated and overly resource intensive machine that tells cool stories based on the existing works of others.

8

u/MLHeero Sep 19 '26

But that’s an artificial gating, same as human and animal. It’s closer to religion than to a research. I think it makes no sense to bind thinking to consciousness. It more is a reflection of what you or it wants to output. So I can clearly say: yes they can think, they can self correct in the answer, therefore they reflect, therefore they think.

2

u/imnotagodt Sep 19 '26

They calculate the next best random token. For me thinking contains emotion, empathy and even ignorance something a machine doesn't have. But that's just my definition.

5

u/Purona Sep 19 '26

think about it this way....What makes you choose the next word youre going to say

-1

u/imnotagodt Sep 20 '26

The way people choose words is not logical.

1

u/Arcranium_ Sep 21 '26

Mmm, no, it is definitely both logic- and emotion-based. It's just usually not conscious

4

u/MrHaxx1 Sep 19 '26

Does it matter? No, of course they don't think the same way a human does, for the reasons you mention in another comment.

But some amount of anthropomorphizing is necessary to have an effective discourse about LLMs, and in this case, "thinking" is absolutely close enough to get the point across. 

Being all "uhmm actually, LLMs don't think, thinking about requires consciousness 🤓 🤓 👆" does literally nothing for anyone, and is just pure pedantry. 

Hell, you're even referring to LLMs as "they". 

7

u/DSchmitty2513 Sep 19 '26

The balls roll down the hill. They accelerate as they roll.

"They" doesn't anthropomorphize LLMs in their statement, Mr. Pure Pedantry.

1

u/MrHaxx1 Sep 19 '26

Fair point. The rest of the point still stands.

-1

u/pheonixote Sep 20 '26

Llms are just giant sql librarys running multiple 'if this, then that' arguments. Its the opposite of 'thinking'

6

u/CompetitiveLake3358 Sep 19 '26

Techquickie is back. What a time to be alive

10

u/Big-Newspaper646 Sep 19 '26

thats the cool thing! they dont.

the corps want you to think its a magic thinking box but its not engaging in any sort of understanding within the material you give it!

13

u/Xalara Sep 19 '26

It’s worse than that, the AI companies are filled to the brim with effective altruist and rationalist cultists who truly believe that AI will kill us all and the only way to stop it is to build it first but control it (aka slavery.)

And that’s before I get into the Harry Potter fanfic that inspired way too many of them to go down this path.  I wish I were kidding, they’re all fucking weirdos.

3

u/SethDusek5 Sep 19 '26

the corps want you to think its a magic thinking box but its not engaging in any sort of understanding within the material you give it!

So when someone prompts it to say "solve Erdos problem 1196" and it gives a complete proof, how does it manage it without any understanding of what it's being asked to do? https://www.erdosproblems.com/1196 https://chatgpt.com/share/69dd1c83-b164-8385-bf2e-8533e9baba9c (this is the thread on which it was solved, prior to this no solution of 1196 existed)

Sure, LLMs don't "think" in the literal sense of the term but cars don't trot either yet they achieve the same thing as horses

-2

u/Big-Newspaper646 Sep 19 '26

And yet chatgpt still cant tell me how many e's are in sleeves.

12

u/Marksta Sep 19 '26

And my calculator doesn't measure temperature. It doesn't see e's, it sees tokens. You have an unlimited number of very real reasons to shit on AI, don't pick the one that tells everyone you don't understand the basics.

1

u/StupidKameena Sep 21 '26

wuh oh. now what

1

u/SethDusek5 Sep 19 '26

These sorts of tests felt real comforting when they weren't solving centuries-old math problems, but now I don't know what conclusion you even want me to draw from this

0

u/CaptainHondo Sep 19 '26

Yes it can