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Boosted by pixxl:
eliasulrich@hachyderm.io ("Xamanismo Coletivo") wrote:

#Harvard published a paper with a devastating title: “Large-Language Models as a #CognitiveVirus”

"Think about how a #virus operates:

It cannot replicate on its own. It requires a host cellular machinery to copy itself.

An #LLM cannot execute, compute, or spread on its own. It requires human cognition, human servers, and human networks to propagate.

The virus infects the host's internal processes to rewrite behavior in its own favor.

And #LLMs do precisely the same thing to #humanthinking."

https://arxiv.org/html/2609.03344v1

Abstract Large-language models (LLMs) are rapidly becoming part of human culture, reshaping how information is produced, transmitted, and used. Here we propose that their diffusion can be understood through a viral analogy, with LLM use spreading through populations, becoming embedded in cognitive and cultural practices. We model transitions among uncoupled, coupled, and persistently dependent users, and show that the interplay between social transmission, recovery, and collective reinforcement can generate tipping points and technological lock-in. A central consequence is the possibility of runaway dynamics: once a critical threshold is crossed, small increases in adoption can trigger rapid population-level shifts toward persistent dependence, with abrupt losses in cognitive competence. The same framework, however, identifies conditions for cognitive immunization, based on reducing transmission and facilitating reversibility. Our results highlight how LLM adoption may involve nonlinear collective transitions with important consequences for cognitive autonomy.