Harvard and Santa Fe Institute paper frames LLMs as a 'cognitive virus'
mikeflache · x · 2026-09-06
Researchers from Harvard and the Santa Fe Institute published a provocatively titled paper, 'Large-Language Models as a Cognitive Virus', analyzing LLMs through evolutionary biology, complex systems, and epidemiology. They argue language models satisfy every biological and mathematical definition of a virus: like a virus that cannot replicate without a host cell, an LLM cannot execute, compute, or spread on its own — it requires human cognition, servers, and networks to propagate, rewriting the host's internal processes in the process. The paper frames ChatGPT adoption as a viral outbreak, a bold and contested analogy bridging cognition, complex systems, and AI ethics.
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