
Ep 255: Does this research explain how LLMs work?
From ToKCast by Brett Hall
January 14, 2026 · 1h 23m · Episode 256
About this episode
The episode explores research papers related to how LLMs work, focusing on the Bayesian Attention Trilogy and includes an interview with one of the authors.
I take a look at these three papers: 1. https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2512.22471 2. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.23752 3. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22473 Collectively titled "The Bayesian Attention Trilogy" along with some other material - in particular an interview with one of the authors "Vishal Misra" - https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/faculty-staff/directory/vishal-misra For those familiar with my output on this you can probably skip to about halfway through at 42:40. Prior to this is a lot of background on Induction, Bayesianism, Critical Rationalism and so on that people may have heard from me before in different contexts - although for what it's worth these are new ways of expressing those ideas. At the end I am reacting to a video found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRuY0ozEm3Q
People in this episode
Guest: Vishal Misra
Topics covered
- LLMs
- Bayesianism
- Induction
- Critical Rationalism
Keywords
- research
- papers
- interview
- video reaction
Mentioned in this episode
Products: Bayesian Attention Trilogy
Books & works: The Bayesian Attention Trilogy
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