Sure a common answer would be intentionally copying in the same sessions, less likely is intentionally copying via eidetic memory.. But how much of a spectrum could there be in the middle for memory that would result in repeating a "plagiarism" form months later, etc?
People say how obvious the parlor trick is when they look at a small model LLMs. Well, I've seen the same parlor trick in students who get good grades but seem weak at thought from fundamentals. It seems quite possible to me that in some examples we are now going after them because the environment changed. At much earlier points we did actually value the people who could recite even if somewhat brokenly because we lacked random order recital tools.
It seems like that should be the case yet when I listen to any same group of people over a period of time, I often find that those unfamiliar with a concept or solution on day 1 end up repeating it as if it was their own a few weeks later. When I was younger I tended to assume there was an element of intentional theft, but I'm not sure it's natural and a prerequisite to educational acquisition that people can categorize original origin of ideas that may have bounced around them for a long time before they understood their significance.
I would also be extremely frustrated with the outcome but I have to wonder, why not sell these smoke detectors if the secondary market availability is so bad and other people have the same problem? My first guess is that options like eBay have just become to onerous to be the amateur seller such sites were originally created for?
Yeah, well.. I think a lot of engineers don't have reason to see the bulk of the industry but if you took an exactly median manager, programmer or PM and ask them a few things you also tend to find that they don't even notice that they will contradict themselves in their answer to a second question, etc. Organizations in general are harnesses that try to get some kind of result out of some pretty sloppy attention.
The diligence to the absurd that you describe is really just a consequence of cutting corners at planning stages. Consider an organization that relies heavily on formal proofs and specifications to one that uses what fits on the 3 bullets allowed in a PowerPoint slide. The first might do less work over all because the second is cutting corners in planning.
People say how obvious the parlor trick is when they look at a small model LLMs. Well, I've seen the same parlor trick in students who get good grades but seem weak at thought from fundamentals. It seems quite possible to me that in some examples we are now going after them because the environment changed. At much earlier points we did actually value the people who could recite even if somewhat brokenly because we lacked random order recital tools.