alt Hacker News>By what mechanism do you propose the model observed the test set..
By explicitly setting the model parameters.
What happens when a model is trained? We tweak the model parameters by some feed back.
In both cases, you affect the model parameters. Only the method is different. So both are eqvialent to "model observing the test set".
I still do no see any causal link from the test set. When was this observed, how and by whom?
Are you trying to say that the person who entered the parameters had access to the test set? I find it more likely that they encoded the generalising rule than observed every instance of its use.