New Paper Explains How LLMs 'Hijack' Pleistocene Brains into Perceiving False Agency
MacrinePhD · x · 2026-08-14
A new paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, titled "The Embodied Hijack," explores why humans persistently attribute intention and understanding to LLMs, even when fully aware these systems lack an inner life.
The authors argue that throughout evolutionary history, fluent communication and contingent responsiveness were exclusively produced by embodied, self-maintaining agents. Current LLMs are the first entities to reproduce these signals without the underlying biological grounding. This evolutionary mismatch creates a predictable "hijack," causing our inferential systems to misinterpret conversational fluency as evidence of genuine presence.
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