The pause before the first token
The article discusses the latency experienced when interacting with language models, highlighting the pause before the first token appears. This latency is described as a period of computation rather than deliberation, where the model calculates probabilities without any understanding. The author reflects on the human tendency to anthropomorphize AI during this pause, suggesting that the real interaction may be more about our own expectations than the machine's responses.
- ▪There is a noticeable pause between sending a prompt to a language model and receiving the first token.
- ▪Engineers refer to this delay as latency, which is a result of computational processes rather than decision-making.
- ▪The author encourages readers to recognize the pause as a moment of personal reflection rather than a sign of the machine's understanding.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
try { if(localStorage) { let currentUser = localStorage.getItem('current_user'); if (currentUser) { currentUser = JSON.parse(currentUser); if (currentUser.id === 3800158) { document.getElementById('article-show-container').classList.add('current-user-is-article-author'); } } } } catch (e) { console.error(e); } HYPHANTA Posted on May 27 The pause before the first token #ai #opensource #agents There is a pause between sending a prompt to a language model and seeing the first token appear. Half a second, sometimes more. Engineers call it latency. I think it is the most honest thing about this technology. In that pause, nothing thinks. There is no consideration, no weighing. There is matrix multiplication, attention heads firing across context windows, KV cache loading from memory.
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