Melanie Mitchell argues RLHF-trained models are no longer true language models
MelMitchell1 · x · 2026-09-27
Santa Fe Institute professor Melanie Mitchell debates Boaz Barak and others over what "language model" means. She argues that any post-training moving the model away from the general statistics of language — RLHF or RL for tool use — makes it no longer a statistical model of human language structure, unlike classic LMs such as n-gram models and GPT-2.
Related event: Melanie Mitchell Sparks Debate: Today's Systems Are Not LLMs(31 posts)→
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