Position: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Trac
Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence arXiv:2504.09762 (cs) [Submitted on 14 Apr 2025 (v1), last revised 9 Jun 2026 (this version, v4)] Title:Position: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces! In this position paper, we present evidence that this anthropomorphization isn't a harmless metaphor, and instead is quite dangerous -- it confuses the nature of these models and how to use them effectively, and leads to questionable research. We call on the community to avoid such anthropomorphization of intermediate tokens.
- ▪Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence arXiv:2504.09762 (cs) [Submitted on 14 Apr 2025 (v1), last revised 9 Jun 2026 (this version, v4)] Title:Position: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces!
- ▪In this position paper, we present evidence that this anthropomorphization isn't a harmless metaphor, and instead is quite dangerous -- it confuses the nature of these models and how to use them effectively, and leads to questionable resear
- ▪We call on the community to avoid such anthropomorphization of intermediate tokens.
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Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence arXiv:2504.09762 (cs) [Submitted on 14 Apr 2025 (v1), last revised 9 Jun 2026 (this version, v4)] Title:Position: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces! Authors:Subbarao Kambhampati, Karthik Valmeekam, Siddhant Bhambri, Vardhan Palod, Lucas Saldyt, Kaya Stechly, Soumya Rani Samineni, Durgesh Kalwar, Upasana Biswas View a PDF of the paper titled Position: Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces!, by Subbarao Kambhampati and 8 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Intermediate token generation (ITG), where a model produces output before the solution, has become a standard method to improve the performance of language models on reasoning tasks.
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