dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaAre Language Models Models?
| Authors | Philip Resnik |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | 2601.10421vv1 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.10421 |
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
Abstract
Futrell and Mahowald claim LMs "serve as model systems", but an assessment at each of Marr's three levels suggests the claim is clearly not true at the implementation level, poorly motivated at the algorithmic-representational level, and problematic at the computational theory level. LMs are good candidates as tools; calling them cognitive models overstates the case and unnecessarily feeds LLM hype.
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"date_created": "2026-02-17T05:53:23.676000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-02-17T05:53:23.676000Z",
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"record": {
"abstract": "Futrell and Mahowald claim LMs \"serve as model systems\", but an assessment at each of Marr\u0027s three levels suggests the claim is clearly not true at the implementation level, poorly motivated at the algorithmic-representational level, and problematic at the computational theory level. LMs are good candidates as tools; calling them cognitive models overstates the case and unnecessarily feeds LLM hype.",
"arxiv_id": "2601.10421",
"authors": [
"Philip Resnik"
],
"categories": [
"cs.CL",
"cs.AI"
],
"license": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
"title": "Are Language Models Models?",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.10421",
"version": "v1"
},
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"source": {
"execution_id": "b719eded-6171-43a7-87ee-9e8597b73a8a",
"id": "arXiv Dataset",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-01-17",
"version": "0.1.0"
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"user_id": 1000002
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