I don't know what that means. There is nothing "mental" happening in the circuits of the computer or the function graph which is implemented on top of it.

In the context of AI, it's a term that I borrow from human cognition to describe rapid calculations without external aids.

The comparison still makes no sense. What would be an external aid for a computer?

Well for the LLM would be a calculator.

The LLM is a calculator. Think about it.

The LLM is an LLM. It runs on computer hardware which has an ALU, but that doesn't make the LLM a calculator. The LLM can, however, call out to a calculator to do addition when it deems necessary.

The LLM is not doing anything other than arithmetic calculations. Every operation an LLM is doing can be done with a calculator.

Typically we don't refer to matrix multiplication as arithmetic calculations, but you do you.

I'm pretty sure it's all arithmetic for an LLM but you do you too.

> Typically we don't refer to matrix multiplication as arithmetic calculations

You don't? Didn't you do them in school? Everyone calls that arithmetic's, you are just adding up and multiplying a bunch of numbers.

do you really multiply numbers but call that arithmetic? I must sincerely ask, where are you?

It's not.

Are you sure?

Yes

So the LLM is not doing arithmetic?