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Equation 4 · Part 6 · Measuring Frontier Models: Contamination, Variance, and What a Score Can Support

=

s^=1n∑i=1n1 ⁣[ success on xi ],xi∼Dbench.\hat{s} = \frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^{n} \mathbf{1}\!\left[\,\text{success on } x_i\,\right], \qquad x_i \sim \mathcal{D}_{\mathrm{bench}} .
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What this part means

The expressions on both sides represent the same quantity under the stated assumptions.

Its job in the formula

The equals sign connects the complete expression on the left with the complete expression on the right. Both sides must have compatible units.

The passage around this formula

Reframe the object. A benchmark score s^\hat{s} is an estimator of a population quantity s — the model’s success rate over some distribution of tasks D\mathcal{D} that somebody hopes resembles the work you actually have. Every property that makes an estimator trustworthy applies: s^=1n∑i=1n1 ⁣[ success on xi ],xi∼Dbench\hat{s} = \frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^{n} \mathbf{1}\!\left[\,\text{success on } x_i\,\right], \qquad x_i \sim \mathcal{D}_{\mathrm{bench}} . The number is only as good as three things: whether Dbench\mathcal{D}_{\mathrm{bench}} resembles D\mathcal{D} , whether the xix_i are genuinely held out, and whether the indicator is measured with enough repetition to characterise its spread. All three fail routinely, and they fail in different directions.

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Learn the underlying idea

An equals sign says that the expression on its left and the expression on its right have the same value under the stated definitions and assumptions.

Open the illustrated equality: what the equals sign claims guide →

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