Dev challenges "stochastic parrot" critics: a transformer with a shell — how many lines until it's one?
BlancheMinerva · x · 2026-09-27
A developer pushed back at Mel Mitchell: his setup is "just a transformer with access to the command line and the ability to run programs", with no input or output processing. He asks whether the stochastic-parrot assessment hinges on the training method — RL vs next-token prediction vs SFT vs teacher-student logit matching — and challenges critics to name the fewest lines he could delete to keep it a parrot.
Related event: Melanie Mitchell Sparks Debate: Today's Systems Are Not LLMs(31 posts)→
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