> we … defined emergent abilities as “abilities that are not present in small language models but are present in large language models.”

This is a poor definition because it doesn’t match what is generally meant by emergent behavior and abilities, which leads to people talking past each other.

For example, it can easily be true that LLMs have emergent behaviors by this definition and not be greater than the sum of their parts.

A better definition would be exhibiting abilities or behaviors not in the training data.