Practical consequences of tokenization details

Tokenization in language models affects performance, particularly in tasks like chess move prediction. Minor prompt variations, including extra spaces, can yield vastly different outputs due to how models tokenize spaces based on their position. For instance, ChatGPT tokenizes "hello world" and "world hello" differently, attaching spaces to the second word. Grasping these subtleties is essential for optimizing model interactions and accurately interpreting responses.