NLP's surprising origins: IEEE traces natural language processing back to Kabbalist mystics
ArtificialOther · x · 2026-09-21
An IEEE Spectrum essay by Oscar Schwartz traces the intellectual roots of natural language processing back centuries before modern computing: Kabbalist mystics experimented with letter permutations and mechanical manipulation of sacred text to generate meaning. The piece situates today's NLP within a much older tradition of symbolic language engineering.
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