Last Words: Large Language Models and the AI Apocalypse

By: Kockelman, Paul

What kind of meaning can machines make--and why does it matter that it's not the same as ours?

Anthropologist Paul Kockelman's Last Words offers a rigorous but accessible account of how large language models actually work--and why the meaning they produce is fundamentally different from human meaning-making. Drawing on the semiotics of C.S. Peirce, Kockelman's witty and insightful pamphlet shows how LLMs are trained to predict word-word relations, not word-world relations, which explains both their uncanny fluency and their systematic blind spots. The result is a compact, essential guide to cutting through the hype: not a dismissal of AI, but a precise account of what it can and cannot do--and who profits from the confusion.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1734643552
• ISBN13: 9781734643558
• Release Date: September 2024
• Publisher: Prickly Paradigm Press
• Length: 60 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 4.5" x 6.9"