Scholars Debate: CoT Boosts Performance, But Is It Truly 'Reasoning'?

MelMitchell1 · x · 2026-08-05

AI researcher Mel Mitchell engaged in a discussion about LLM 'reasoning' capabilities. She highlighted a dissonance: while Chain-of-Thought (CoT) demonstrably improves performance, it isn't necessarily faithful, questioning if it equates to true reasoning. Other scholars added that humans—our best example of general intelligence—might not satisfy strict definitions of reasoning either, making the definition itself debatable.

Related event: Scholars Debate: Does CoT Equate to True Reasoning in LLMs?(3 posts)→

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