Links 5/7

AI thinking isn't thinking, being ok with not being ok, and Chinese regional cuisines!

1. This paper argues that AI models’ thinking traces aren’t “real thinking” because swapped, noisy, and arbitrarily-truncated reasoning traces preserve or improve solution accuracy. When I examine my own train of thought when problem solving, I also wonder whether my “real thinking” is load bearing. Stop Anthropomorphizing Intermediate Tokens as Reasoning/Thinking Traces! — Subbarao Kambhampati et al.

2. Joan Tollifson writes a beautiful piece, steeped in paradox, about what it means to be ok with yourself, even with the parts of yourself that are not ok with you. I’ve definitely had the experience of accepting that something is unacceptable to me. Okay with Being Just As You Are? — Joan Tollifson

3. Chinese Cooking Demystified maps 63 distinct Chinese regional cuisines and substyles. There is a companion video if you don’t want to read all this, but it’s great. I found it fascinating to learn about how much variety there is in Chinese food. 63 Chinese Cuisines: the Complete Guide — Chinese Cooking Demystified

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