Login (DCU Staff Only)
Login (DCU Staff Only)

DORAS | DCU Research Repository

Explore open access research and scholarly works from DCU

Advanced Search

Understanding Foundation Models: Are We Back in 1924?

Smeaton, Alan F. orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-1028-8389 (2025) Understanding Foundation Models: Are We Back in 1924? The 2nd International Conference on Foundation and Large Language Models (FLLM2024) . ISSN 979-8-3503-5479-9

This position paper explores the rapid development of Foundation Models (FMs) in AI and their implications for intelligence and reasoning. It examines the characteristics of FMs, including their training on vast datasets and use of embedding spaces to capture semantic relationships. The paper discusses recent advancements in FMs’ reasoning abilities which we argue cannot be attributed to increased model size but to novel training techniques which yield learning phenomena like grokking. It also addresses the challenges in benchmarking FMs and compares their structure to the human brain. We argue that while FMs show promising developments in reasoning and knowledge representation, understanding their inner workings remains a significant challenge, similar to ongoing efforts in neuroscience to comprehend human brain function. Despite having some similarities, fundamental differences between FMs and the structure of human brain warn us against making direct comparisons or expecting neuroscience to provide immediate insights into FM function.
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:Foundation models, benchmarking and evaluation, EEG probes, early neuroscience.
Subjects:Biological Sciences > Neuroscience
Humanities > Biological Sciences > Neuroscience
DCU Faculties and Centres:Research Institutes and Centres > INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics
Publisher:IEEE
Official URL:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10852488
Copyright Information:Author
ID Code:30828
Deposited On:24 Mar 2025 15:22 by Gordon Kennedy . Last Modified 24 Mar 2025 15:22

Full text available as:

[thumbnail of Understanding_Foundation_Models_Are_We_Back_in_1924.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
1MB

Dimensions Badge

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Archive Staff Only: edit this record