Dissociating language and thought in large language models
Mahowald et al., Dissociating language and thought in large language models, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, March 19, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2024.01.011
Highlights
Formal linguistic competence (getting the form of language right) and functional linguistic competence (using language to accomplish goals in the world) are distinct cognitive skills.
The human brain contains a network of areas that selectively support language processing (formal linguistic competence), but not other domains like logical or social reasoning (functional linguistic competence).
In the late 2010s, large language models trained on word prediction tasks began achieving unprecedented ...