Can Machines Be in Language?

In late 2022, large language models (LLMs) erupted into the public spotlight. Pundits were quick to claim LLMs as the next step in the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and even the Singularity. LLMs are artificial neural networks (ANN) created by a complex process. First, the core ANN is trained on billions of words of text from the Internet to respond to a prompt with a list of most probable next words after the prompt. Second, the core ANN is then "fine-tuned" by a complex process called "tweaking" to make the core ANN outputs more satisfactory to humans.