Robin Sloan wrote a thought piece exploring what “extended thinking” and “reasoning” models actually mean.
…the models can only “think” by spooling out more text — while human thinking often does the opposite: retreats into silence, because it doesn’t have words yet to say what it wants to say.
That’s an interesting point Sloan makes. I believe there’s nuance though.
I’ve long felt that I do my best thinking by writing. When I work through a gnarly design problem, I’m writing first, then sketching, then maybe Figma-ing. But that could be after a walk, a shower, or doing the dishes.
