| The world is racing to develop ever more sophisticated large language models while a small language model unfurls itself in my home.  Illustration by Angie Wang The artist Angie Wang developed a fascination with ChatGPT and other applications of large language models at the same time that her toddler son was learning to speak, developing his own “small language model” at home. As she watched her son interact with the world, she began to fear that he, along with the rest of us, was no more than what researchers have dubbed a “stochastic parrot,” a machine capable of producing complex linguistic expression without understanding the content it generates. In a visually stunning and deeply moving new illustrated story, Wang considers the ways in which technological developments threaten to undermine our ideas about art, original thought, expression, and selfhood—while also offering a profound message of hopefulness about the stubborn and, perhaps, irreplaceable fact of humanity. “They are so much less than a machine,” she writes, of the children in the world. “And yet it’s clear to any of us that they’re so much more than a machine.” Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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