Position: Key Claims in LLM Research Have a Long Tail of Footnotes
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Abstract (arXiv)
Much of the recent discourse within the ML community has been centered around Large Language Models (LLMs), their functionality and potential -- yet not only do we not have a working definition of LLMs, but much of this discourse relies on claims and assumptions that are worth re-examining. We contribute a definition of LLMs, critically examine five common claims regarding their properties (including 'emergent properties'), and conclude with suggestions for future research directions and their framing.
Key facts. Cited by 20 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 91 of its 151 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 Aug 2023.
Builds on
91 of 151 references.
References · 91
- 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,419
- 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,971
- 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 14,132
- 2019RoBERTa: A Robustly Optimized BERT Pretraining Approachcited by 13,372
- 2023Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Modelscited by 13,028
- 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,459
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- 2021Finetuned Language Models Are Zero-Shot Learnerscited by 3,780
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- 2022OPT: Open Pre-trained Transformer Language Modelscited by 3,512
- 2023Universal and Transferable Adversarial Attacks on Aligned Language Modelscited by 3,104
- 2023Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4cited by 2,592
- 2022Emergent Abilities of Large Language Modelscited by 2,512
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50 most cited of 91 All 91 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2024: 8; 2025: 10; 2026: 2.
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- 2024CroissantLLM: A Truly Bilingual French-English Language Modelcited by 53
- 2024Trust No Bot: Discovering Personal Disclosures in Human-LLM Conversations in the Wildcited by 47
- 2024Training on the Test Task Confounds Evaluation and Emergencecited by 34
- 2024Emergence in non-neural models: grokking modular arithmetic via average gradient outer productcited by 28
- 2024A Percolation Model of Emergence: Analyzing Transformers Trained on a Formal Languagecited by 26
- 2024Are Large Language Models Good Classifiers? A Study on Edit Intent Classification in Scientific Document Revisionscited by 11
- 2024"I Am the One and Only, Your Cyber BFF": Understanding the Impact of GenAI Requires Understanding the Impact of Anthropomorphic AIcited by 8
- 2025Large Language Models and Emergence: A Complex Systems Perspectivecited by 7
- 2025Generating Synthetic Data with Formal Privacy Guarantees: State of the Art and the Road Aheadcited by 4
- 2025Investigating Task Arithmetic for Zero-Shot Information Retrievalcited by 4
- 2025Giving AI Agents Access to Cryptocurrency and Smart Contracts Creates New Vectors of AI Harmcited by 3
- 2025When Large Language Models Know the Table: A Framework for Assessing Data Contamination in Tabular Datasetscited by 3
8 more
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- 2026Strategic Polysemy in AI Discourse: A Philosophical Analysis of Language, Hype, and Powercited by 1
- 2024A quest through interconnected datasets: lessons from highly-cited ICASSP paperscited by 0
- 2025Local Differences, Global Lessons: Insights from Organisation Policies for International Legislationcited by 0
- 2025Neither Stochastic Parroting nor AGI: LLMs Solve Tasks through Context-Directed Extrapolation from Training Data Priorscited by 0
- 2026Training Witnesses: Trusting the Training without Trusting the Trainercited by 0
- 2026Training Witnesses: Trusting the Training without Trusting the Trainer27 Sep 2026
- 2026Strategic Polysemy in AI Discourse: A Philosophical Analysis of Language, Hype, and Power22 Apr 2026
- 2025When Large Language Models Know the Table: A Framework for Assessing Data Contamination in Tabular Datasets23 Oct 2025
- 2025Giving AI Agents Access to Cryptocurrency and Smart Contracts Creates New Vectors of AI Harm11 Jul 2025
- 2025Large Language Models and Emergence: A Complex Systems Perspective10 Jun 2025
- 2025Neither Stochastic Parroting nor AGI: LLMs Solve Tasks through Context-Directed Extrapolation from Training Data Priors29 May 2025
- 2025Express Your Doubts -- Probabilistic World Modeling Should not be Based on Token logprobs4 May 2025
- 2025Investigating Task Arithmetic for Zero-Shot Information Retrieval1 May 2025
- 2025Generating Synthetic Data with Formal Privacy Guarantees: State of the Art and the Road Ahead26 Mar 2025
- 2025Reassessing Active Learning Adoption in Contemporary NLP: A Community Survey12 Mar 2025
- 2025Local Differences, Global Lessons: Insights from Organisation Policies for International Legislation19 Feb 2025
- 2025Limits to AI Growth: The Ecological and Social Consequences of Scaling29 Jan 2025
8 more
- 2024"I Am the One and Only, Your Cyber BFF": Understanding the Impact of GenAI Requires Understanding the Impact of Anthropomorphic AI11 Oct 2024
- 2024Are Large Language Models Good Classifiers? A Study on Edit Intent Classification in Scientific Document Revisions2 Oct 2024
- 2024A quest through interconnected datasets: lessons from highly-cited ICASSP papers19 Sep 2024
- 2024A Percolation Model of Emergence: Analyzing Transformers Trained on a Formal Language22 Aug 2024
- 2024Emergence in non-neural models: grokking modular arithmetic via average gradient outer product29 Jul 2024
- 2024Trust No Bot: Discovering Personal Disclosures in Human-LLM Conversations in the Wild16 Jul 2024
- 2024Training on the Test Task Confounds Evaluation and Emergence10 Jul 2024
- 2024CroissantLLM: A Truly Bilingual French-English Language Model1 Feb 2024
- 2024CroissantLLM: A Truly Bilingual French-English Language Modelcited by 53
- 2024Trust No Bot: Discovering Personal Disclosures in Human-LLM Conversations in the Wildcited by 47
- 2024Training on the Test Task Confounds Evaluation and Emergencecited by 34
- 2024Emergence in non-neural models: grokking modular arithmetic via average gradient outer productcited by 28
- 2024A Percolation Model of Emergence: Analyzing Transformers Trained on a Formal Languagecited by 26
- 2024Are Large Language Models Good Classifiers? A Study on Edit Intent Classification in Scientific Document Revisionscited by 11
- 2024"I Am the One and Only, Your Cyber BFF": Understanding the Impact of GenAI Requires Understanding the Impact of Anthropomorphic AIcited by 8
- 2025Large Language Models and Emergence: A Complex Systems Perspectivecited by 7
- 2025Generating Synthetic Data with Formal Privacy Guarantees: State of the Art and the Road Aheadcited by 4
- 2025Investigating Task Arithmetic for Zero-Shot Information Retrievalcited by 4
- 2025Giving AI Agents Access to Cryptocurrency and Smart Contracts Creates New Vectors of AI Harmcited by 3
- 2025When Large Language Models Know the Table: A Framework for Assessing Data Contamination in Tabular Datasetscited by 3
12 most cited of 17 All 17 (JSON)
- 2026Training Witnesses: Trusting the Training without Trusting the Trainer27 Sep 2026
- 2025When Large Language Models Know the Table: A Framework for Assessing Data Contamination in Tabular Datasets23 Oct 2025
- 2025Giving AI Agents Access to Cryptocurrency and Smart Contracts Creates New Vectors of AI Harm11 Jul 2025
- 2025Large Language Models and Emergence: A Complex Systems Perspective10 Jun 2025
- 2025Investigating Task Arithmetic for Zero-Shot Information Retrieval1 May 2025
- 2025Generating Synthetic Data with Formal Privacy Guarantees: State of the Art and the Road Ahead26 Mar 2025
- 2025Reassessing Active Learning Adoption in Contemporary NLP: A Community Survey12 Mar 2025
- 2025Local Differences, Global Lessons: Insights from Organisation Policies for International Legislation19 Feb 2025
- 2025Limits to AI Growth: The Ecological and Social Consequences of Scaling29 Jan 2025
- 2024"I Am the One and Only, Your Cyber BFF": Understanding the Impact of GenAI Requires Understanding the Impact of Anthropomorphic AI11 Oct 2024
- 2024Are Large Language Models Good Classifiers? A Study on Edit Intent Classification in Scientific Document Revisions2 Oct 2024
- 2024A quest through interconnected datasets: lessons from highly-cited ICASSP papers19 Sep 2024
12 newest of 17 All 17 (JSON)