Applied AI

Course map · S1 How LLMs work · Episode 7 of 12

Field note: lost in the middle

S1 E7 Field note · 18 slides · 4 October 2026

  1. Slide 1 of 18, Cover.
  2. Slide 2 of 18, New format.
  3. Slide 3 of 18, Why it matters.
  4. Slide 4 of 18, Your turn.
  5. Slide 5 of 18, Finding.
  6. Slide 6 of 18, Method.
  7. Slide 7 of 18, Method.
  8. Slide 8 of 18, Method.
  9. Slide 9 of 18, Data.
  10. Slide 10 of 18, Data.
  11. Slide 11 of 18, Concepts.
  12. Slide 12 of 18, Where it breaks.
  13. Slide 13 of 18, For engineers.
  14. Slide 14 of 18, For engineers.
  15. Slide 15 of 18, For leaders.
  16. Slide 16 of 18, Decision rule.
  17. Slide 17 of 18, Open questions.
  18. Slide 18 of 18, Series map.

Lesson notes

Across three current models and 270 calls, where a fact sat in documents up to 64,000 tokens made no difference to finding it, unlike the 2023 finding.

Decision rule

Stop arranging long prompts by position for simple lookups. Test the harder shapes of your own task before trusting a long context.

Ideas in this lesson

  • Attention
  • Context
  • Measuring, not quoting

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