Paper ID: 2207.09238

Formal Algorithms for Transformers

Mary Phuong, Marcus Hutter

This document aims to be a self-contained, mathematically precise overview of transformer architectures and algorithms (*not* results). It covers what transformers are, how they are trained, what they are used for, their key architectural components, and a preview of the most prominent models. The reader is assumed to be familiar with basic ML terminology and simpler neural network architectures such as MLPs.

Submitted: Jul 19, 2022