What Stays Human When the Machine Becomes Fluent
Notes before a salon — May 13, Chinatown.
In the early 2000s, researchers studying epilepsy patients identified a single neuron in one patient’s brain that fired only when she encountered Jennifer Aniston. Her photograph, her name in text, even a stylized cartoon drawing — the same cell, every time. That is how human cognition organizes meaning: symbolically.
Large language models work dif…
