Book Section
Marietta Kesting
Large Language Models, Parrots, and Children
Modelling Speech, Text, and Learning Processes
This essay discusses some aspects of large language models (LLMs) in 2023 that model human speech and text. Analogies between modelling language in current AI applications and learning processes in children appear in discussions of human versus machine intelligence and creativity. The anthropomorphizing perspective employed in these debates is the legacy of the ‘Turing Test’, but also the notion that animals, formerly colonized people, and machines supposedly only imitate ‘correct’ language.
| Title |
Large Language Models, Parrots, and Children
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| Subtitle |
Modelling Speech, Text, and Learning Processes
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| Author(s) |
Marietta Kesting
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| Identifier | |
| Description |
This essay discusses some aspects of large language models (LLMs) in 2023 that model human speech and text. Analogies between modelling language in current AI applications and learning processes in children appear in discussions of human versus machine intelligence and creativity. The anthropomorphizing perspective employed in these debates is the legacy of the ‘Turing Test’, but also the notion that animals, formerly colonized people, and machines supposedly only imitate ‘correct’ language.
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| Is Part Of | |
| Place |
Berlin
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| Publisher |
ICI Berlin Press
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| Date |
20 May 2025
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| Subject |
large language models (LLMs)
speech
learning
children
artificial intelligence (AI)
creativity
parroting
|
| Rights |
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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| Language |
en-GB
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| page start |
217
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| page end |
237
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| Source |
Breaking and Making Models, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Marietta Kesting, and Claudia Peppel, Cultural Inquiry, 33 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2025), pp. 217–37
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