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Comment by ilaksh | Hacker News Reader

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What? Transformer model is a standard industry term for a particular machine learning model architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer_(machine_learning_...

At 34M parameters, it's not very large. A LLM can be a transformer model, but also it can have a different architecture (e.g. RNN, such as RWKV).

Apple has been using RNNs for many things, I believe it's the first time they're shipping an on-device transformer model.

> It's a small, fairly dumb LLM.

I have no idea whether you really don’t know what “LLM” stands for or are just trolling. Not calling it an LLM actually is more honest marketing precisely because it’s small, and “transformer-based model” is a precise technical description that everybody with even superficial knowledge of the field understood immediately.

And I’m actually onboard with most of your other examples. I’d include “all-day battery life” as another empty marketing term that doesn’t really say much.

I know that LLM stands for large language model. It is still that type of model even though that final parameter count is not very large. They are deliberately avoid "LLM" because it doesn't compare favorably with most.

> It is still that type of model

“That type of model” are called transformers, not “like an LLM but small”. The fact that you didn’t know that doesn’t make it wrong.

It’s an autocomplete model, it’s not designed to compare favorably to LLMs.

And a transformer model is a specific type of LLM. You could also build a language model using a RNN. There’s nothing deceptive here.

This model wasn't advertised by apple, someone who is probably not even affiliated with apple wrote a piece on how he found, analyzed and activated a small neural network inside of an obscure folder. There are no misguided "apple fans" to incorrect here.

This is the one case where the technical term and Apple’s marketing actually do happen to overlap! These are transformer models. Apple didn't invent them, but their description of them is technically accurate. “LLM” is the dumbed-down term for the masses, describing only the “what” but not the “how”.

I know what a transformer model is. But Apple knows the normal technical term is LLM. They are deliberately avoiding it to try to create a new category for themselves, because their model's "intelligence" is very poor when compared to other LLMs.

An LLM is a transformer model. That’s the standard, industry term. What are you going on about?

I am very aware of that.

Nowhere does the press release say LLM. That's because it's not very large or smart and when compared to most LLMs' "intellectual" performance, it looks bad. By avoiding that term, they are successfully sidestepping an important aspect of the evaluation of this system in the eyes of many Apple fans.

> Nowhere does the press release say LLM. That's because it's not very large

So your gripe is that they don’t have a LLM and didn’t say they did?

you want to compare llama2, inflection1, gpt4 et al. to apple's typing assistant model that is designed to run locally and in a tiny scope? large language model literally isn't accurate for something that's two orders of magnitude off what the term usually describes. if anything, give apple points for not hyping up "LLM technology" or whatever to boost their share price like every other tech-adjacent company is rn.

I know it's infuriating but that's how marketing works, and since they are a successful company, idk why they would stop using it. Just like some people say "RTX" instead of RayTracing now, it's quite a success for the company if it managed to replace a technical term in the mind of most consumers

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