Why Are LLMs Smart?

There's Something Fundamentally Wrong With LLMs

LLMs aren't trained on the "vast majority of speech," experts warn, a major blind spot that could have sweeping consequences.

Why do LLMs make stuff up? New research peers under the hood.

Claude's faulty "known entity" neurons sometimes override its "don't answer" circuitry.

Take caution in using LLMs as human surrogates | PNAS

Recent studies suggest large language models (LLMs) can generate human-like responses, aligning with human behavior in economic experiments, survey...

Dan Shipper 📧 on Twitter / X

this is true and is a big reason why you don’t need to be a highly technical researcher to use LLMs in surprising and novel ways https://t.co/TuxNzXzToU— Dan Shipper 📧 (@danshipper) July 27, 2025

Large language model

A large language model (LLM) is a neural network trained on a vast amount of text for natural language processing tasks, especially language generation. LLMs can typically generate, summarize, translate, and analyze text in many contexts, and are a foundational technology behind modern chatbots.[1] Biased or inaccurate training data can make an LLM's output less reliable.[2]

Here’s what’s really going on inside an LLM’s neural network

Anthropic's conceptual mapping helps explain why LLMs behave the way they do.

Cognitive exponents and LLM leverage

I know a few people for whom LLMs have been a near-immediate multiplier of attention and effort. I know a lot for whom LLMs clearly make them worse at thinking and doing things. So: why?

How LLMs are and are not like the brain

Hi from buttondown! At the bottom of this newsletter is a bit of administrivia about the new platform How LLMs are and are not like the brain Beneath all the...

LLMs and World Models, Part 1

How do Large Language Models Make Sense of Their “Worlds”?

The Ultimate Guide to Fine-Tuning LLMs from Basics to Breakthroughs: An Exhaustive Review of Technologies, Research, Best Practices, Applied Research Challenges and Opportunities (Version 1.0)

The scientific case for being nice to your chatbot

New research confirms that LLMs often perform better when you encourage them. But why?

Why Can’t Powerful LLMs Learn Multiplication?

These days, large language models (LLMs) can handle increasingly complex tasks, writing complex code and engaging in sophisticated reasoning. But when it comes to 4-digit multiplication, a task taught in elementary school, even state-of-the-art systems fail. Why? A new paper by Computer Science PhD student Xiaoyan Bai and Faculty Co-Director of the Data Science Institute’s …

Alignment Is Proven To Be Solvable

That LLMs understand natural language as well as they do should dramatically change our understanding of the problem.

Solving a Million-Step LLM Task with Zero Errors

LLMs have achieved remarkable breakthroughs in reasoning, insights, and tool use, but chaining these abilities into extended processes at the scale of those routinely executed by humans,...