Reshaping Perception Through Technology: From Ancient Script to Large Language Models

TL;DR

Large language models serve as a new medium that reshapes perception and creativity, similar to writing, with implications for education and society, emphasizing artistic skills over intelligence.

Contribution

The paper conceptualizes AI as a medium akin to writing, tracing its historical lineage and discussing its impact on perception, creativity, and societal adaptation.

Findings

LLMs reshape perception and creativity as a new medium.

Historical parallels show recurring human responses to new media.

Implications include emphasizing artistic skills and societal adaptation.

Abstract

As large language models reshape how we create and access information, questions arise about how to frame their role in human creative and cognitive life. We argue that AI is best understood not as artificial intelligence but as a new medium -- one that, like writing before it, reshapes perception and enables novel forms of creativity. Drawing on Marshall McLuhan's insight that "the medium is the massage," we trace a lineage of technologies -- from DNA and the nervous system to symbols, writing, and now LLMs -- that mold cognition through a shared logic of flexible unfolding and co-creation. We observe that as technologies become more externalized and decoupled from physiology, they introduce both greater creative potential and greater risk of inauthenticity and manipulation. This tension is acute with LLMs, but not unprecedented: ancient responses to writing reveal a recurring human tendency to project intelligence onto powerful new media. Rather than viewing AI as a competitor, we propose framing it as a medium that foregrounds artistic skills: aesthetic judgment, curation, and the articulation of vision. We discuss implications for education, creative practice, and how society might adapt to this new medium as it did to writing.