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It's not uncommon to have a regression test for compilers that are written in their own language (e.g. some C compilers): compile each new version with itself, then use that to compile itself again, then use the result on unit tests or whatever, which should yield the same results as before.

The point being that determinism of a particular form is expected and required in the instances where they do that.

(I'm not arguing for or against that, I'm simply saying I've seen it in real life projects over the years.)


That's an excellent question, but the answer would depend on goals and the evaluation system used.

It seems to me that CEOs have a different opinion than anyone who cares instead about actual people.


SO is the website Stack Overflow.


Life mimics art.


Yep; this has frustrated me for two decades.


For the languages that we westerners regard as having very exotic grammars -- not like Chinese, which is comparatively straightforward, but like the aboriginal languages of Australia -- AFAIK there's no experience on such subjects yet.

For the world's most common/famous languages (English, Mandarin, Portuguese, etc) there's every reason to think that it's just a question of how much training data is available for training up an LLM.

In particular note that the Chinese experiments with their Deepseek LLM technology does well with both Mandarin and English, which all by itself is fairly illustrative.

If "exotic" grammars turned out to pose a major problem for LLMs, that would possibly challenge some of the most mainstream theories about linguistics, so I regard that as unlikely.


And it's not even a full moon.


You're arguing with people talking about how things are currently by talking about how things could be or should be and how people should change how things are.

That can be a great topic on its own, but it's not the same topic others are discussing.

And unless I missed it, you didn't say "let's switch the topic", you just went off in your own direction.


Of course they did.

I've never met an online public transit advocate who didn't come off as a zealot, lecturing the uninformed masses about the obvious benefits that will come from joining them while dismissing any criticism or skepticism as ignorance.


And I have never meet an American that was not fat.


Then you haven't met many Americans.

Unfortunately, I encounter many, many, many more public transit zealots online (and in person, though much less frequently) than I need to hear parrot the same talking points from fuckcars and NotJustBikes about the joys of living in an efficiency apartment and using a cargo bike to get my kids to and from their 3 different schools in the snow or blistering heat while ranting about vague "externalities" without ever providing actual numbers.


How much do you weigth?


Why aren't they satisfied with merely pondering strats made in US vs Mexico vs Japan vs Indonesia? Careful reviews of quality versus price (which of course varied over time) always showed more correlation with sometimes-unwarranted reputation than with reality.


Amongst this crowd, “my buddy said” is data. Correlation analysis is not in the picture.


Since the topic arose, FWIW, here in the U.S. it's common to have one power socket in a room (e.g. living room, bedroom) controlled by wall switch, and multiple other power outlets lacking such a switch.

I'm not in the industry, but I think the idea is that, in the absence of built-in lighting, one should be able to add lamps to a room that can be turned on/off by a handy power switch next to the room's entrance.


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