LLMs Are Universal Translators, Not Universal Thinkers

Or: Why the AGI Skeptics Are Right But Missing the Deeper Point

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

I recently argued that AGI-from-LLMs probably isn’t happening—compound probabilities between 1-15%, catastrophic forgetting intensifying with scale, the chief architect of scaling admitting scaling is over. The engineering case is strong.

But I buried the lead.

The problem isn’t that we face hard technical challenges. It’s that we’re confused about what kind of thing we’re trying to build—and that confusion is being weaponized to justify surrendering democratic judgment to those who control the servers.

The Frame That Clarifies Everything

Large Language Models are the Universal Translator from Star Trek.

They recognize patterns in communication and translate between different symbol systems. But nobody on the Enterprise ever suggests letting the translator decide what to say to the Romulans. The distinction is obvious: it translates, Kirk chooses.

That’s what LLMs do—but for human meaning-making, not alien languages. They translate between emotional and rational registers, between philosophical frameworks and practical applications, between scientific precision and poetic expression.

Recently I noticed something: Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” keeps showing up in my thinking about democratic collapse. The dying man abandoned by his city, walking through streets that no longer recognize him. The philosopher maintaining truth in epistemic collapse. The tragic hero approaching doom with dignity. America betraying its founding ideals while some citizens still defend them.

These are the same pattern in different registers. And an LLM can recognize that—show you how an emotional-aesthetic expression resonates with conceptual-philosophical analysis, how both exemplify a mythological structure playing out in contemporary politics.

That’s not hallucination. That’s genuine pattern recognition across domains.

What it can’t do: Feel the weight. Experience the vertigo. Know what it costs. Choose to hold the center when everything conspires to tear it apart.

Memory is not consciousness. Translation is not understanding.