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by fluoridation 45 days ago
A Las Vegas algorithm requires that you have a deterministic test that can definitively determine the correctness of an intermediate result. So what you're saying is that what it takes to make LLMs give 100% correct results is having a human between the LLM and the user, who's capable of re-prompting on incorrect answers from the LLM. Well, if the human is there, why not just ask the human? What value is the random number generator adding?

Like the GP said, the point of determinism is that you can trust the correctness of the results, without doing any checking. Solved problems stay solved.
1 comments
nonethewiser 45 days ago
> So what you're saying is that what it takes to make LLMs give 100% correct results is having a human between the LLM and the user, who's capable of re-prompting on incorrect answers from the LLM.

No, that's not what I'm saying. Im saying determinism isn't required for correctness. And Im not saying that models are already perfect other than prematurely stopping. What I am saying is that non-determinism doesn't mean they cant be 100% correct.

Besides, humans baby-sitting LLMs is not even implied by the misinterpretation of what I'm saying. What's implied by that is humans needing to give the LLM explicit success criteria from the outset. Which is totally reasonable.

> Like the GP said, the point of determinism is that you can trust the correctness of the results

Well, no. Now you are waaaay overstating determinism. Deterministic results might be incorrect.

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fluoridation 45 days ago
>What's implied by that is humans needing to give the LLM explicit success criteria from the outset.

But the LLM is non-deterministic. LLM(x + y) or even LLM(LLM(x) + y) is just as non-deterministic as LLM(x).

>Well, no. Now you are waaaay overstating determinism. Deterministic results might be incorrect.

Obviously? But that's still is the reason why deterministic computers are useful. If you could enter a proven-correct program into a computer, run it, and get back a correct result only some of the time, that'd be okay maybe for some things, but we couldn't have built everything we have on top of that. It's the same reason why deductive reasoning is useful. Once you've proven something true, you're done, it's proven. No further work is necessary.

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