"No human can go edit a brain to become better at math" -- I'd offer this is exactly what "learning math" is.

I know I'm being pedantic, and I understand you mean "edit" like "surgically", but it does still feel worth noting.

The equivalent to "human learning math" would be: Astra fine tuning a Qwen model. It's distinctly different from surgically editing weights.

Perhaps this is analogous to what our brains are doing? Maybe the different regions of the brain operate like semi-independent "models" that edit the other regions' "weights", and that's where the learning comes from?

human brains are black boxes to humans. the fact you can learn math doesn't change that. you have no idea how your brain is learning math down to the neuron level.

LLM weights are _white boxes_ to LLMs.

Inducing the changes to become better at math requires years of study. This is "I know kung fu".

"Learning" now feels like breaking down your whole Lego build and building it up again, in order to change a few fundamental blocks, while this feels like making only the required changes.