The Sequence Chat: Thinking About Transformers as Computers
The Sequence Chat: Thinking About Transformers as Computers
A different way to reflect about the capabilities of transformers.
I mentioned last week that these opinion pieces are trying to offer a different perspective about various topics in AI. Today, I would like to share some opinions about transformer architectures. Beyond completely revolutionizing the generative AI field, transformers can be considered a true marvel given its unique scaling properties and incredible adaptability. One analogy that has worked for me recently is to think of transformers as computers.
The transformer architecture has revolutionized the field of artificial intelligence, particularly in natural language processing. But beyond its impressive performance on language tasks, there's a compelling argument to be made that transformers represent something even more profound - an emergent form of computation that blurs the line between neural networks and traditional computers. Let's explore this provocative thesis and its far-reaching implications.