Build, break, extend
A half-day deep dive using the paper cutout models. Participants build their own language models, pool them into bigger ones, deliberately break them (training in sycophancy), extend them with tools, and put everything together in a closing poetry slam where each group designs a model to perform its own generated verse.
Run of show
| Section | Time |
|---|---|
| Icebreaker and intro | 20 min |
| Training | 20 min |
| Generation | 20 min |
| Combining models | 25 min |
| Break | 10 min |
| Sycophancy | 20 min |
| Agentic AI | 20 min |
| Poetry slam | 45 min |
Combining models is a deck-only section (it doesn’t have a standalone module page yet): it pools two groups’ cutout spreads to show what more training data buys you. The poetry slam, in which each group designs a model—choosing training data and sampling rules—for another group to build and perform, is described in the Sampling module.
You will need
- printed token cutouts for several texts (bigram,
-n 2)—see the Materials page for ready-to-print packs - sycophancy cutouts for the “break” section: there’s no ready-to-print pack
yet, so generate them with the CLI
(
llms_unplugged cutouts -i data/sycophancy.txt -n 2 --duplex) - clear table space per group of 2-4, plus room to pool spreads when groups combine models
- pen and paper per group
- a projector for the slides
Using the slides
Open the slides in your browser — there's nothing to install or download.
The slides run in your browser, and every slide carries full presenter notes—what to say, what to watch for, and how long each part should take. A few keys worth knowing:
- f toggles fullscreen—do this before you start presenting
- s opens the speaker view in a separate window, with the presenter notes, a timer, and a preview of the next slide (drag it to your laptop screen and put the slides on the projector)
- o shows an overview of all slides, handy for skipping ahead if you're running short on time