Is it fair to still call LLMs stochastic parrots now that they are enriched with reasoning? Seems to me that the simple procedure of large-scale sampling + filtering makes it immediately plausible to get something better than the training distribution out of the LLM. In that sense the parrot metaphor seems suddenly wrong.
I don’t feel like this binary shift is adequately accounted for among the LLM cynics.
it was never fair to call them stochastic parrots and anybody who is paying any attention knows that sequence models can generalize at least partially OOD
Anyone who has studied Monte Carlo methods and stochastic differential equations and their applications and stochastic algorithms never found “stochastic parrot” a pejorative. In a very real way determinism is a requirement for a small mind that can’t get comfortable or understand advanced probability theory and its application.
Weird the section of people wanting fairness to LLMs.
If it makes you feel better, I'd say the Eliza Effect is good evidence human have a lot of "stochastic parrot" in them also. And there's no reason that being stochastic parrot means something can't generalize.
The thing with these terms is LLMs are distinctly new things. Even blind men looking at elephants can improve their performance with good terminology and by listening to each other. "Effective searchers", "question answers" and "stochastic parrots" are useful term just 'cause the describe concrete behaviors - notably "stochastic parrots" gives some idea of the "no particular goal" quality of LLMs (will happily be NAZIs, pacifists or communists given the proper context). On the other hand, "intelligent" gives no good clues since humans haven't really defined the term for themselves and it is a synonym for good, worthy or capable (giving the machine a prize rather than looking at it).
I don’t disagree with your comment, but if you read the papers where the term was introduced that is very clearly not what they have in mind with the phrase “stochastic parrot.”
I'd like to say that with my gut but, at the same time, I've not actually seen a solid definition of what process would define reasoning to say "and this could never be it in any way!". If anything, "a iterative noisy search of similar outputs" now feels at least a big part of what the process of reasoning might need to involve.
I don’t feel like this binary shift is adequately accounted for among the LLM cynics.