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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25342 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026

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Do you dispute this claim?

Only to the extent that this claim applies to humans too, so it's not clear to me how this is supposed to draw a line between what humans do and what LLMs do.

After a few postcards go back and forth, you decide it would be helpful to set up a chessboard in order to keep track of what's going on and for each move

Okay. But we know that LLMs can keep track of the game by printing the current state of the board and updating each time you or it make a move. So in what way do LLMs not model chess?

But we know that LLMs can keep track of the game by printing the current state of the board and updating each time you or it make a move.

Is this what the LLM is doing or is this what the agentic software harness around the LLM is doing? You previously pointed out how colloquial information pollutes and poisons understanding of the technical process that is actually occurring. You just tripped over that yourself. The LLM is not doing any of this.

I admit I couldn't find examples of people testing LLMs' ability to continually update e.g. a FEN representation of the board. However, I did find that (certain) LLMs have actually been able to play chess just given the moves made so far (no actual visualization of the board, no harness) and make legal next moves since 2023. If you have an explanation of how it's doing that with no internal model of the board (as shown in this paper for a toy model), I'm all ears.

I'm making a very restrained comment, nothing in regards to whether or not LLMs have an internal model of the board, just that the agentic harness is not the LLM and attributing features of that harness to the LLM is adding to the overall level of confusion about what LLMs are doing by the lay folk.

I'll look through the paper, I owe someone a LLM-world-model answer based on technical understanding of what a world model actually is, sounds like the findings are related.

You don't need agentic harnesses to play chess with an LLM.

I don't care about chess,

But we know that LLMs can keep track of the game by printing the current state of the board and updating each time you or it make a move.

This is just incorrect, and you know it. Stop muddying the waters.

I don't care about chess,

Really? Then why are you talking about tracking the state of the chess game?

This is just incorrect, and you know it. Stop muddying the waters.

I already said:

I admit I couldn't find examples of people testing LLMs' ability to continually update e.g. a FEN representation of the board.

There's really no need to get so touchy.

Nah, my bugbear is the muddying of the tech terms colloquially, and the ascribing functions to the model that is actually related to the software harness. I think its causing a large amount of misunderstanding among lay-folk.

There's really no need to get so touchy.

I'm getting touchy because you are trying to start your chess debate with me, and I very much do not care about it. I responded to something very specific, and when you wanted to start chess talk, I pointed out I didn't care, then you continued to try and start chess-talk, and I am once again pointing out that I am un-interested.

Only to the extent that this claim applies to humans too, so it's not clear to me how this is supposed to draw a line between what humans do and what LLMs do.

Well the claim I was responding to is that LLMs MUST be modelling chess, because otherwise they would not be able to make legal moves at a rate better than chance. This claim pretty clearly seems to be incorrect.

Beyond that, I don't really understand your point. Here's an example to show what I mean:

There used to be these books you could buy, I think they were called "Informers." They contained records of all IM or higher level chess games for some time period. In theory, you could buy a set of them and have a big library of Informers. Ok, suppose you are playing postal chess with someone and you observe that they make a series of legal moves. Most likely, the person has a chess board set up in their house which they are using to analyze the game. Possibly, they have no chessboard set up and they are just looking up similar games in the Informers and playing whatever moves most masters played in similar positions.

So regardless of whether you are playing a human or playing an LLM, it's potentially possible for your opponent to make legal moves, even a series of legal moves, without modeling the game.

In my non-expert view, LLMs don't create sophisticated models the way humans do. Perhaps chess isn't the best example of this since there was no chess in the ancestral environment. But they definitely can and do create rudimentary models and I think that there's a good chance this will improve a lot in the future.

But we know that LLMs can keep track of the game by printing the current state of the board and updating each time you or it make a move.

I don't know that, but I'm certainly willing to agree that's potentially possible. That's basically how the LLM modeled the simple game I had invented for purposes of testing it. Once it started doing creating a rudimentary model along these lines, it stopped making illegal moves.

So in what way do LLMs not model chess?

By not modeling chess. I mean, even if one allows that an LLM can set up a rudimentary model along the lines you describe, it's not carved into stone anywhere that they must do so.

By not modeling chess. I mean, even if one allows that an LLM can set up a rudimentary model along the lines you describe, it's not carved into stone anywhere that they must do so.

I genuinely don't understand what we're talking about anymore. It's not carved into stone that a human must set up a rudimentary model to play a game of chess either. Is there any distinction, in your view, between LLMs and humans in the chess scenario?

I genuinely don't understand what we're talking about anymore.

Agreed. Let me ask you this: Now that you understand what I meant with the word "database," do you disagree with anything I have said?

Is there any distinction, in your view, between LLMs and humans in the chess scenario?

Yes, as far as I know, at the moment humans are capable of making and using more sophisticated models of chess than are LLMs. (To the extent that LLMs are capable of making models along the lines you described.)

Agreed. Let me ask you this: Now that you understand what I meant with the word "database," do you disagree with anything I have said?

I think we agree that LLMs learn from seeing chess games. I don't agree that LLMs aren't modeling chess at all - there seems to be no evidence for this. A thinking trace of a chess game with an LLM would certainly show the LLM trying to think about possible moves and evaluating their trade offs, even in the absence of a game board that it uses to keep state. I'm sure they are more likely to make mistakes if they aren't keeping track of the board, but so are humans.

To be honest, I'm not sure what kind of evidence would change your mind here if existing thinking traces are not enough. Anthropic researchers found that models are doing complex modeling for tasks as simple as deciding when to start a new line when writing text. Looking into a model to really understand how it's modeling something as complicated as a chess game would require a research budget.

Edit: there was a dude who trained a small model on next token prediction and found that it maintains a board state internally. So I guess now we can put this to bed?

Yes, as far as I know, at the moment humans are capable of making and using more sophisticated models of chess than are LLMs. (To the extent that LLMs are capable of making models along the lines you described.)

Sure, in the sense that good human players can beat LLMs at chess. That said, the best models play at a class C level and do significantly better than the average chess.com player, which I think is hard to explain away by appealing to the models having memorized a bunch of openings.

I don't agree that LLMs aren't modeling chess at all - there seems to be no evidence for this.

The fact that they (allegedly) regularly make illegal moves is evidence of it.

To be honest, I'm not sure what kind of evidence would change your mind here if existing thinking traces are not enough.

One thing that would change my mind is if LLMs regularly and accurately solved problems which require modeling. For example, the (fresh) carwash puzzle.

The fact that they (allegedly) regularly make illegal moves is evidence of it.

It really depends on the model. Some of them don't make illegal moves, or at least do so rarely.

It really depends on the model. Some of them don't make illegal moves, or at least do so rarely.

Certainly if LLMs started (verifiably) playing perfect chess in the sense of never making illegal moves, I would accept as evidence that they are creating chess models.

If an LLM made illegal moves only rarely, I'm not sure what I'd make of it.

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