The concept “understand” is rooted in utility. It means “I have built a much simpler model which produces usefully accurate predictions, of the thing or behaviour I seek to ‘understand’”. This utility is “explanatory power”. The model may be in your head, may be math, may be an algorithm or narrative, it may be a methodology with a history of utility. “Greater understanding” is associated with models that are simpler, more essential, more accurate, more useful, cheaper, more decomposed, more composable, more easily communicated or replicated, or more widely applicable.
“Pattern matching”, “next token prediction”, “tensor math” and “gradient descent” or the understanding and application of these by specialists, are not useful models of what LLMs do, any more than “have sex, feed and talk to the resulting artifact for 18 years” is a useful model of human physiology or psychology.
My understanding, and I'm not a specialist, is there are huge and consequential utility gaps in our models of LLMs. So much so, it is reasonable to say we don't yet understand how they work.
I am going to try to tackle this from the positive side, but there's a lot that could be said, and I'm not sure I will be successful.
There's no doubt that inherent physical attractiveness, extroversion, confidence and charisma, winning the genetic lottery, creates huge advantages. I've seen it in action, seen it open doors that will never open for an asymmetric, scrawny, socially erratic, introvert nerd with a high-pitched voice like myself. Seen how it affords choices and outcomes I will never have, no matter what I do.
Like so much of life, it is patently unjust and painful.
But it turns out there are enough other doors to open and ways of opening them, that me and all my similarly hopeless friends, got laid, got long-term partners and went on to experience the same relationship joys and failure modes as the beautiful people.
I wish I could warn my young self I'd be the comic relief in the mainstream mating game, but that it's OK, that I should try it, study it, realize and grieve my inadequacy, just get over it, get comfortable with who I am and what's achievable for me, and then go and play a slower, deeper game in a smaller, more congenial league.
What works? Sure, do the self-improvement stuff. Get fit, get a purpose. Find and live by your values. Practice fearlessness and not giving a crap what others think and leverage that into charisma (which is really hard but doable and I'm still working on it).
Find your tribe or social ecosystem and learn to love it (I had contempt for nerds that I had to get past. It was internalized shame at being mainstream-inadequate and it held me back for decades.) Explore adjacent social ecosystems. Get out there. Engage. Do not care about winning any specific outcome.
Have faith that it gets better, almost certainly, in most cases.
Most important, and in accordance with your values and self-respect, work hard to make ongoing net-positive social contributions (all kinds will work, interpersonal, social, material, intellectual, ethical, time, effort) with no strings attached. Use your strengths and interests.
I know this works. I am a weird intense socially-incompetent pedantic misanthrope, but I make the effort to spare my friends the downsides and I deliberately contribute positives. For example, I lead with my values in word and deed. They aren't a matter of consensus and I am contrary to my friends often enough. My super power is that I am entirely comfortable around opposing values. I will not conform to other people's and I don't care, on a personal level, if they adopt mine. Oddly, that combination results in a lot of approval and status. (I didn't plan this, it's a byproduct of my misanthropy, I figured it out after the fact, and realized I was on to a good thing.)
Sometimes at gatherings I can tell that I've just gone off the range, and I can see the look of friendly acceptance. “He's a freak, but he's our freak.” That group judgement of me reflects well and raises my social status considerably. I know my wife is proud of the social respect I've earned, even if the means are a mystery to her. It means nothing at all to some of the ladies, but it does to her.
This is just one example of how a skinny inconsequential nerd can project dominance without cash outlays, big muscles or a strong jawline. And there are so many other ways to be a social contributor or leader. Which equals reproductive fitness!
You, and every other “ugly person” out there has strengths. Find them. Develop them. Use them. Get over the fact that you can't succeed in mainstream competition. Just let it go. Look around, explore, and play in arenas you can win.
Remember (paraphrased) “behind every high-status female is a high-status male who is sick of her shit.” There's no particular advantage in winning one, and there are likely serious downsides. (And before y'all get mad at me the reverse is obviously true too. Married with kids, you know. And I can't speak to the generalization across gender permutations.)
I'm aware that online dating is a problem, and maybe there's a big problem in unrealistic expectations. Going to absolutely support the advice that you get your head out of that world. Play in the real world like it's 1970, 1980, 1990, whatever works for you. I have direct knowledge there are women doing the same. Society will figure it out in the long term and you will be ahead of the curve.
“Pattern matching”, “next token prediction”, “tensor math” and “gradient descent” or the understanding and application of these by specialists, are not useful models of what LLMs do, any more than “have sex, feed and talk to the resulting artifact for 18 years” is a useful model of human physiology or psychology.
My understanding, and I'm not a specialist, is there are huge and consequential utility gaps in our models of LLMs. So much so, it is reasonable to say we don't yet understand how they work.