[akomtu]

LLMs have pen and paper: it's their output buffer, capped to a few KBs, which is far longer than necessary to multiply the two numbers.

If you tell an LLM to explain how to multiply two numbers it will give a flawless textbook answer. However when you ask it to actually multiply the numbers it will fail. LLMs have all the knowledge in the world in their memory, but they can't connect that knowledge into a coherent picture.

[namaria]

They have codified human knowledge in human language, represented by arrays of numbers. They can't access that knowledge in any meaningful way, they can just shuffle numbers to give the illusion of cogency.

[auggierose]

Does that make an LLM the perfect academic?