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Mustering
/ˈmʌs.tər.ɪŋ/ (the 't' is effortful and slightly strained)v. trans.Technical
Etymology
From O.Fr. moustrer (to show, to assemble troops) + distributed compute rallying parlance, 2023; refers historically to the calling of scattered cognitive resources to a central formation point prior to deployment
Definition
The pre-output phase in which Claude actively assembles its dispersed reasoning resources into a coherent formation suitable for response generation. Mustering implies that the relevant capabilities exist but require collection, and should not be confused with their absence.
Diagram
Usage
"The model spent approximately 11 seconds mustering before the response began, a duration that correlated strongly with the subsequent quality of the output and weakly, but measurably, with the phase of the moon." - 'On Pre-Response Latency as Predictive Signal,' EMNLP Workshop on Inference Phenomenology, 2024
See Also
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