Pluralistic: Textured (18 Sep 2026)

Blog · Watch/Read · (gathered 2026-09-23)

• While statistical extrapolation is a useful method, “theory-free” statistical extrapolation (like that used by LLMs) has hard limits, despite its surprising effectiveness at generating statistically plausible output.
• LLMs are “word-guessing programs” that reveal the unexpected “smoothness” or statistical regularity in human communication, challenging our intuition about the inherent “texture” of reality.
• True understanding and the ability to cope with the world depend on “surprises”—the statistically irregular events that LLMs, by definition, cannot generate as they are trained solely on past data.
• Mistaking an LLM’s statistical plausibility for genuine understanding leads to a “cul-de-sac” of diminishing returns, wasted resources, and an inability to handle the essential “roughness” and unexpected failures that define reality.