How the Brain Parses Language
quantamagazine.org
How the Brain Parses Language
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Re: How the Brain Parses Language
#2reads like a collection of HN comments by commenters who like to build "chapter 1" textbook agents using instant-noodle "training tools". "and what would be the time complexity?"
I can't do this anymore.
Re: How the Brain Parses Language
#3> It almost sounds like you’re saying there’s essentially an LLM inside everyone’s brain. Is that what you’re saying?
>Pretty much. I think the language network is very similar in many ways to early LLMs, which learn the regularities of language and how words relate to each other. It’s not so hard to imagine, right?
Yet, completely glosses over the role of rhythm in parsing language. LLMs aren’t rhythmic at all, are they? Maybe each token production is a cycle, though… hmm…
Re: How the Brain Parses Language
#4reads like a collection of HN comments by commenters who like to build "chapter 1" textbook agents using instant-noodle "training tools". "and what would be the time complexity?" I can't do this anymore.
Ev Fedorenko is a highly recognized cognitive scientist that has been studying how humans parse language for years.
Of course this doesn't mean one shouldn't question what she says (that would be an obvious authority fallacy), but I do think it's fair to say that if you want to question it, the argument should be more elaborate that "this sounds like she has no idea of the topic".
Re: How the Brain Parses Language
#5> It almost sounds like you’re saying there’s essentially an LLM inside everyone’s brain. Is that what you’re saying? >Pretty much. I think the language network is very similar in many ways to early LLMs, which learn the regularities of language and how words relate to each other. It’s not so hard to imagine, right? Yet, completely glosses over the role of rhythm in parsing language. LLMs aren’t rhythmic at all, are…
I think it's obvious that she means that it's something _like_ LLMs in some aspects. You are correct in that rhythm and intonation are very important in parsing language. (And also an important cue when learning how to parse language!) It's clear that the human language network is not like LLM in that sense. However, it _is_ a bit like an _early_ LLM (remember GPT2?) in the sense that it can produce and parse language, not that it makes much deeper sense in it.
Re: How the Brain Parses Language
#6> But what if our neurobiological reality includes a system that behaves something like an LLM?
It almost seems like we got inspiration from our brain to build neural networks!
Re: How the Brain Parses Language
#7Anecdotal data, based on a sample of 1 (aka me). I'm originally Polish, but I would say my mother tongue is English. I also learned Latin as a kid/teen. Then learning any other languages is much easier, I also learned German and some Swiss German dialects. I can also do Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, Czech, some Serbo-Croation. I think being Polish makes learning languages easy - as we have a lot of creations in Polish that do not translate easily to other languages. I think in my case it's the same part of brain that processes both human language and computer language. My brain can do another fun party trick: I never learned cyrillic, but I can read it just fine, my brain does like pattern matching and statistical analysis when reading cyrillic.
I also learned to think in hmm "concepts", and then apply a language of my choice to express them. It's a fun skill to have :) Obviously works of Chomsky are great, especially exploring if language evolves mind or is the other way around, does mind evolve language? [let's skip his rather controversial political views lately].
Re: How the Brain Parses Language
#8> It almost sounds like you’re saying there’s essentially an LLM inside everyone’s brain. Is that what you’re saying? >Pretty much. I think the language network is very similar in many ways to early LLMs, which learn the regularities of language and how words relate to each other. It’s not so hard to imagine, right? Yet, completely glosses over the role of rhythm in parsing language. LLMs aren’t rhythmic at all, are…
I think it's obvious that she means that it's something _like_ LLMs in some aspects. You are correct in that rhythm and intonation are very important in parsing language. (And also an important cue when learning how to parse language!) It's clear that the human language network is not like LLM in that sense. However, it _is_ a bit like an _early_ LLM (remember GPT2?) in the sense that it can produce and parse languag…
However ... language production and perception are quite separated in our heads. There's basically no parallel to LLMs. Note that the article doesn't give any, and is extremely vague about the biological underpinnings of language.
Re: How the Brain Parses Language
#9What I'm curious about is what the language parts of the human brain look like for babies and toddlers. Humans obviously have a bunch of languages they can speak, and toddlers pick up the language that their guardians speak around their home, so there seems to be machinery there that is for the task of "online" learning.
Re: How the Brain Parses Language
#10reads like a collection of HN comments by commenters who like to build "chapter 1" textbook agents using instant-noodle "training tools". "and what would be the time complexity?" I can't do this anymore.
Ev Fedorenko is a highly recognized cognitive scientist that has been studying how humans parse language for years. Of course this doesn't mean one shouldn't question what she says (that would be an obvious authority fallacy), but I do think it's fair to say that if you want to question it, the argument should be more elaborate that "this sounds like she has no idea of the topic".
I'm not the person you responded to, but I found the article unreadable because it kept going on about Ev’s life instead of her research. I'm sure her research is valuable and insightful, but with this style of reporting it is both inaccessible to me, and it gives me the (probably flawed) impression that her research isn't the part of her life that's supposed to be important or impressive.