Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a language network in the human brain — and has found some similarities to LLMs.

Even in a world where large language models (LLMs) and AI chatbots are commonplace, it can be hard to fully accept that fluent writing can come from an unthinking machine. That’s because, to many of us, finding the right words is a crucial part of thought — not the outcome of some separate process.

But what if our neurobiological reality includes a system that behaves something like an LLM? Long before the rise of ChatGPT, the cognitive neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko began studying how language works in the adult human brain. The specialized system she has described, which she calls “the language network,” maps the correspondences between words and their meanings. Her research suggests that, in some ways, we do carry around a biological version of an LLM — that is, a mindless language processor — inside our own brains.

“You can think of the language network as a set of pointers,” Fedorenko said. “It’s like a map, and it tells you where in the brain you can find different kinds of meaning. It’s basically a glorified parser that helps us put the pieces together — and then all the thinking and interesting stuff happens outside of [its] boundaries.”

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