My Grandpa used to do a magic trick with his dog, Halley. He’d tell gullible audiences (usually us kids) that Halley knew how to count. Then he’d hold out a milkbone and tell Halley, “count to eight.” Halley barked at the milkbone exactly eight times—then my Grandpa would gave the dog the bone. She stopped counting at eight… magic.

I enjoyed this trick several (ok, many) times before I realized that the dog would have kept on barking to infinity. It was my Grandpa’s act of giving Halley the bone that got her to stop barking at the right time. In other words, the dog wasn’t counting to eight. My Grandpa was.

Large language models are a little like Halley, the dog. ...

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