ChatGPT Resembles a Slice of the Human Brain

Language is commonly understood to be the "stuff" of thought. People "talk it out" and "speak their mind," follow "trains of thought" or "streams of consciousness." Some of the pinnacles of human creation--music, geometry, computer programming--are framed as metaphorical languages. The underlying assumption is that the brain processes the world and our experience of it through a progression of words. And this supposed link between language and thinking is a large part of what makes ChatGPT and similar programs so uncanny: The ability of AI to answer any prompt with human-sounding language can suggest that the machine has some sort of intent, even sentience.