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Patel: Language is a representation for reasoning, not human thought itself

Dylan Patel · Generative AI 101: Tokens, Pre-training, Fine-tuning, Reasoning — With SemiAnalysis CEO Dylan Patel · Apr 23, 2025 · at 4:58

Dylan Patel, CEO of SemiAnalysis, compares AI tokenization to the biological processing of thought and sensory perception in the human brain.

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“Language is not actually how our brain thinks. It's just a representation for which it to, you know, reason over.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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Assertion Not checkable as stated
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