[HN Gopher] Foundations of Large Language Models
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       Foundations of Large Language Models
        
       Author : pkoird
       Score  : 205 points
       Date   : 2025-01-23 01:33 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
        
       | htrp wrote:
       | at 231 pages this is definitely book territory
        
         | ipython wrote:
         | Thankfully the submission is self aware- the first sentence of
         | the article is literally:
         | 
         | > This is a book about large language models.
        
           | bradly wrote:
           | The book too it self aware, though you do have to make it to
           | page ii.
           | 
           | > In writing this book, we have gradually realized that it is
           | more like a compilation of "notes" we have taken while
           | learning about large language models. Through this note-
           | taking writing style, we hope to offer readers a flexible
           | learning path. Whether they wish to dive deep into a specific
           | area or gain a comprehensive understanding of large language
           | models, they will find the knowledge and insights they need
           | within these "notes".
        
             | TeMPOraL wrote:
             | Now I wonder if the LLMs described in it are self-aware
             | too, and whether by the time I reach the end of this book,
             | I will become self-aware as well.
        
       | thatxliner wrote:
       | These things can be on Arxiv??
        
         | bradly wrote:
         | I assumed Arxiv was peer-reviewed content only, but it looks
         | like that is not the case.
         | 
         | Submission guidelines:
         | https://info.arxiv.org/help/submit/index.html
         | 
         | Moderation process:
         | https://info.arxiv.org/help/moderation/index.html
        
           | williamstein wrote:
           | As an academic, I always thought of arxiv as where you put
           | your papers first, before they are peer reviewed. Before that
           | we used our webpages, but they kept breaking.
        
           | niyyou wrote:
           | On the contrary, ArXiv is for pre-prints, i.e. not (yet)
           | peer-reviewed. Off the top of the my head, it was initially
           | used by physicists who often have huge collaborations and
           | long reviewing time. Then the ML community invaded the space
           | later on. This does not mean a peer-reviewed paper cannot go
           | there of course.
        
             | gus_massa wrote:
             | Most of the times the peer review version has a copiright
             | restriction, so the arxiv version is the finan draft that
             | may have small differences.
        
         | incognito124 wrote:
         | Definitely, eg https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.00650
        
       | MR4D wrote:
       | Me to ChatGPT:
       | 
       | Assume you are a college instructor for a Freshman Computer
       | Science course.
       | 
       | Your job is to take a pdf file from the internet and teach the
       | topics to you students.
       | 
       | You will do this by writing paragraphs or bullet points about any
       | and all key concepts in the PDF necessary to cover the topic in 2
       | hours of lectures
       | 
       | The pdf file is at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.09223
       | 
       | Build the lecture for me.
        
         | astrange wrote:
         | It can't read PDFs. If you ask it to, it generates code to read
         | the first X characters of the PDF and does a bad job.
         | 
         | (Claude is much better at it.)
        
           | helsinkiandrew wrote:
           | Yes it can - both via websearches and uploaded (atleast I'm
           | doing it daily).
           | 
           | EDIT: This article says its only in ChatGPT Enterprise, but
           | works for me on free plan:
           | https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10416312-visual-
           | retrieva...
        
             | cdfuller wrote:
             | That article is referencing visuals embedded in PDFs. As a
             | free user you wouldn't be able to ask ChatGPT to analyze a
             | graph inside a PDF, only text.
        
       | hintymad wrote:
       | Is it just me or this book looks rather like a Word doc than a
       | Latex one?
        
         | hexomancer wrote:
         | A- Who cares?
         | 
         | B- The latex source of the book is available on the ArXiv page.
        
         | jsvlrtmred wrote:
         | It's just you
        
       | crisissolution wrote:
       | Didn't know I could find it on arxiv, will definitely give it a
       | read
        
       | drmindle12358 wrote:
       | Authors are from Northeaster University, Shenyang, China, not the
       | Northeastern U in Boston. Don't understand why the two Chinese
       | professors write an LLM book in english, definitely not from
       | experiences, probably under pressure to publish.
        
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       (page generated 2025-01-23 23:03 UTC)