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Psychologist: Humans Invented Language, LLMs Don't Create Conventions

Michael Tomasello, a developmental psychologist, argues that humans actively created language rather than simply learning it. He points to studies where children isolated from spoken language develop their own gestural systems and shared conventions. Tomasello suggests that current large language models do not exhibit this same capacity for creating linguistic conventions. AI

IMPACT Discusses the fundamental difference between human language creation and current LLM capabilities, suggesting LLMs lack the capacity for true linguistic convention development.

RANK_REASON Opinion piece from a developmental psychologist discussing the nature of language creation and comparing it to LLM capabilities.

Read on Machine Learning Street Talk →

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Psychologist: Humans Invented Language, LLMs Don't Create Conventions

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Opinion piece from a developmental psychologist discussing the nature of language creation and comparing it to LLM capabilities.
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Only one publisher covered this so far. Single-source stories can still rank when the publisher is high-authority, but they lack cross-source corroboration.
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opinion, other
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COVERAGE [1]

  1. Machine Learning Street Talk TIER_1 English(EN) · Machine Learning Street Talk ·

    Humans Created Languages (Michael Tomasello)

    Humans didn't just learn language, we created it. Michael Tomasello, developmental psychologist at Duke University, on studies where children cut off from talking invent new gestures and turn them into shared conventions, and why large language models, as far as he knows, don't c…