News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some stored knowledge. Parent comment

Re:LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some... by gyrovagueGeist on Thursday March 28, 2024 @05:24PM (#39857486)
While "local maximas" is wrong, I think "a local maxima" is a valid way to say "a member of the set of local maxima" regardless of the number of elements in the set. It could even be a singleton.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some... by Tijdreiziger on Thursday March 28, 2024 @05:54PM (#39857822)
You can't have one maxima in the same way you can't have one pencils. That's just how English works.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some... by pixl97 on Thursday March 28, 2024 @07:01PM (#39858469)
You can't have one local maxima, it would be the global maxima. So by saying local maxima you're assuming the local is just a piece of a larger whole, even if that global state is otherwise undefined.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some... by reverius42 on Thursday March 28, 2024 @11:28PM (#39860377)
No, you can’t have one local maxima, or one global maxima, because it’s plural. You can have one local or global maximum, or two (or more) local or global maxima.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some... by folli on Friday March 29, 2024 @12:20AM (#39860664)
"You can't have one local pencils, it would be the global pencils"
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some... by dragonwriter on Friday March 29, 2024 @12:33AM (#39860743)
No, a member of the set of local maxima is a a local maximum, just like a member of the set of people is a person, because it is a definite singular.

The plural is also used for indefinite number, so “the set of local maxima” remains correct even if the set has cardinality 1, but a member of the set has definite singular number irrespective of the cardinality of the set.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some... by gyrovagueGeist on Friday March 29, 2024 @10:19AM (#39864420)
I've been convinced, thanks!
[ Parent | on HN ]