AI memes emerge as new form of digital literacy

Language and brains are intertwined yet distinct evolutionary systems with profound implications for artificial intelligence. While human brains evolved to rapidly acquire languages, the languages themselves evolved to maximize accessibility to new speakers. This relationship creates a fascinating parallel to mathematical systems where finite axioms can generate infinite theorems—suggesting language might similarly function as a model for describing human shared experience, with memes serving as theorems in this system.

The big picture: LLMs function as reasoning systems that generate new “theorems” within language, making them powerful but fundamentally different from human general intelligence.

• Unlike the popular fear of imminent AGI, this perspective suggests LLMs are simply a new implementation of existing reasoning capabilities rather than a path to true artificial general intelligence.
• In domains with clear rules like chess, computational reasoning can exceed human capabilities, but real-world complexity demands the goal-setting and priority management that evolved in human brains.

Why this matters: The relationship between language models and memetic evolution could create unintended consequences for human cognition.

• If language models become breeding grounds for memes, they might potentially spread deeply-reasoned but problematic ideas similar to those found in certain mental health conditions.
• This suggests a fundamental vulnerability at the intersection of powerful reasoning systems and human memetic susceptibility.

The deeper theory: Language can be viewed as a mathematical-like model that describes the shared experiences of its speakers, though more ambiguous than formal systems like arithmetic.

• Just as arithmetic uses finite axioms to describe infinite numbers and their relationships, language might use core structures to model infinite experiences.
• This framing positions memes as analogous to theorems—replicable units of meaning that build upon the language system.

Historical context: Evolution has fine-tuned the human brain over millennia through reinforcement learning, yet even this refined system remains vulnerable to mental illness.

• Some theories suggest human society’s evolution is primarily driven by meme evolution, with humans serving as hosts in a distributed computational network.
• This balance between individual goals and memetic processing has maintained relative stability in human cognitive systems.