[giardini]

Plato's "Allegory of the cave" was uninteresting and uninformative when I first read it more than 50 years ago. It remains so today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

Also, other than in sculpture/dentistry/medicine I also find "ablation" to not be a particularly insightful metaphor either. Although I see ablation's application to LLMs I simply had to laugh when I first read about it: I envisioned starting with a Greyhound bus and blowing off parts until it was a Lotus 7 sports car!8-). Good luck with that! Kind of like fixing the TV set by kicking it (but it _does_ work sometimes!).

Perhaps we should refrain somewhat from applying metaphors/simile/allegories to describe LLMs relative to human intelligence unless they provide some insight of significant value.

[coldtea]

>Plato's "Allegory of the cave" was uninteresting and uninformative when I first read it more than 50 years ago. It remains so today.

Anything can be uninteresting and uninformative when one doesn't see it's interestingness or can't grok its information.

It however stood for millenia as a great device to describe multiple layers of abstractions, deeper reality vs appearance, and so on, with utility as such in countless domains.

[giardini]

No. the Allegory is a fragment of a poor unfinished story and little more. You don't need it to explain "multiple layers of abstractions, deeper reality vs appearance" as you say. In fact, you don't need it for anything at all except to explain Plato's "Allegory of the cave". Sheesh.

coldtea says "...with utility as such in countless domains." So when's the last time you referred to the "Allegory of the cave" in your day, other than on HN?

[coldtea]

>So when's the last time you referred to the "Allegory of the cave" in your day, other than on HN?

Several times. But it was with broadly educated people, not over-specialized one-dimensional ones.

[taneq]

I don’t think that’s what ablation is about. It’s more like blowing parts off a bus until it ceases to be a bus. Then you find the minimal set of bus parts required to still be a bus, and that’s an indication that those parts are important to the central task of being a bus.

[giardini]

taneq SAYS "i don’t think that’s what ablation is about. It’s more like blowing parts off a bus until it ceases to be a bus."

Different people have different goals. You want some form of minimal bus and I want a Lotus 7. There's no guarantee either of us reach our goal.

Ablation is about disassembling something randomly, whether little by little or on an arbitrary scale until [SOMETHING INTERESTING OR DESIRABLE HAPPENS].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablation_(artificial_intellige...

Ablation is laughable but sometimes useful. It is also easy, mostly brainless, NOT guaranteed to provide any useful information (so you've an excuse for the wasted resources), and occasionally provides insight. It's a good tool for software engineers who have no (or seek no) understanding of their system, so I think of ablation as a "last resort" solutions (e.g., another being to randomly modify code until it "works") that I disdain.

But I'm old so I'm probably wrong! Burn those CPU towers down, boys and girls!