CoT vs SFT
CoT (Chain of Thought) and SFT (Supervised Fine-Tuning) both come up in ai & ml conversations and get confused. Here's the plain-English difference, side by side, so you can use each one with confidence.
The key difference: CoT refers to chain of thought, while SFT refers to supervised fine-tuning — they describe different things even when they show up in the same sentence.
CoT — Chain of Thought
A prompting technique that asks a model to reason step by step before answering. Cheap to apply, often dramatic accuracy lifts on multi-step problems — and the foundation of modern reasoning models.
SFT — Supervised Fine-Tuning
Training a base model on curated input-output pairs to specialize its behavior. SFT is where most domain models actually get their personality — long before RLHF cleans up the rough edges.
When to use CoT
Reach for "CoT" when the conversation is specifically about chain of thought. A prompting technique that asks a model to reason step by step before answering. Cheap to apply, often dramatic accuracy lifts on multi-step problems — and the foundation of modern reasoning models.
When to use SFT
Reach for "SFT" when the conversation is specifically about supervised fine-tuning. Training a base model on curated input-output pairs to specialize its behavior. SFT is where most domain models actually get their personality — long before RLHF cleans up the rough edges.
FAQs
What is the difference between CoT and SFT?
CoT stands for Chain of Thought — A prompting technique that asks a model to reason step by step before answering. Cheap to apply, often dramatic accuracy lifts on multi-step problems — and the foundation of modern reasoning models. SFT stands for Supervised Fine-Tuning — Training a base model on curated input-output pairs to specialize its behavior. SFT is where most domain models actually get their personality — long before RLHF cleans up the rough edges.
Are CoT and SFT the same thing?
No. They're often used in the same conversation because they're related, but they describe different concepts. CoT = Chain of Thought. SFT = Supervised Fine-Tuning.
When should I use CoT vs SFT?
Use CoT when you're specifically referring to chain of thought. Use SFT when the topic is supervised fine-tuning.