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Re:Erdos 281 solved with ChatGPT 5.2 Pro by ekianjo on Sunday January 18, 2026 @12:15AM (#46664977)
It's pattern matching. Which is actually what we measure in IQ tests, just saying.
Re:Erdos 281 solved with ChatGPT 5.2 Pro by jadenpeterson on Sunday January 18, 2026 @12:18AM (#46664991)
There's some nuance. IQ tests measure pattern matching and, in an underlying way, other facets of intelligence - memory, for example. How well can an LLM 'remember' a thing? Sometimes Claude will perform compaction when its context window reaches 200k "tokens" then it seems a little colder to me, but maybe that's just my imagination. I'm kind of a "power user".
Re:Erdos 281 solved with ChatGPT 5.2 Pro by rurban on Sunday January 18, 2026 @12:21AM (#46665008)
I call it matching. Pattern matching had a different meaning.
Re:Erdos 281 solved with ChatGPT 5.2 Pro by ekianjo on Sunday January 18, 2026 @01:22AM (#46665290)
what are you referring to? LLMs are neural networks at their core and the most simple versions of neural networks are all about reproducing patterns observed during training
Re:Erdos 281 solved with ChatGPT 5.2 Pro by rurban on Sunday January 18, 2026 @02:29AM (#46665582)
You need to understand the difference between general matching and pattern matching. Maybe should have read more older AI books. A LLM is a general fuzzy matcher. A pattern matcher is an exact matcher using an abstract language, the "pattern". A general matcher uses a distance function instead, no pattern needed.

Ie you want to find a subimage in a big image, possibly rotated, scaled, tilted, distorted, with noise. You cannot do that with a pattern matcher, but you can do that with a matcher, such as a fuzzy matcher, a LLM.

You want to find a go position on a go board. A LLM is perfect for that, because you don't need to come up with a special language to describe go positions (older chess programs did that), you just train the model if that position is good or bad, and this can be fully automated via existing literature and later by playing against itself. You train the matcher not via patterns but a function (win or loose).