Silicon Valley Recasts Human Thought in AI Terms, Dubbed "Modelmorphism"

1 articles · Updated · The Atlantic · Aug 20

Silicon Valley workers are increasingly describing themselves with AI jargon—saying they are “hallucinating,” suffering “context rot,” or lacking the right “training data” to explain memory lapses, randomness or uncertainty.
The shift reflects the spread of large language models and a reversal of anthropomorphism: instead of giving machines human traits, people are framing human cognition as if it worked like an LLM.
Researchers say the metaphors are not entirely arbitrary, because some scientists see parallels between neural networks and the brain’s language systems, though those comparisons remain contested.
Linguists and philosophers place the trend in a longer pattern of technology reshaping how people talk about the mind, from steam engines and switchboards to computers.
Critics warn AI-inflected self-description can flatten human experience into machine logic, even as some in tech say the language helps them reflect on their own mental habits.