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
Subtitle
Modelling Speech, Text, and Learning Processes
Author(s)
Marietta Kesting
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.
Is Part Of
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
20 May 2025
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.
Language
en-GB
page start
217
page end
237
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

Publication scheduled for 20 May 2025