Stochastic Parrots co-author hits back: paper was about 2021 LLMs, not today's AI systems
ctjlewis · x · 2026-09-27
Melanie Mitchell called criticism of the Stochastic Parrots paper a straw-person argument: the paper was about 2021-era LLMs, whereas today's AI systems are complex software stacks with extensive post-training and many external components, not just LLMs.
KeyTryer countered that the paper's authors likely believe current LLMs work exactly like those of 2021, and that Emily Bender refuses to even use the term AI as she considers it fake. The exchange highlights the widening perception gap between academic critics and practitioners over what modern systems actually are.
Related event: Melanie Mitchell Sparks Debate: Today's Systems Are Not LLMs(31 posts)→
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