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LLM 'Cognitive Core' Now Evolving
The LLM (Large Language Model) "cognitive core" is slowly starting to come into being, says Andrej Karpathy, once head of Tesla's self-driving computer division.
"It lives always-on and by default on every computer as the kernel of LLM personal computing." https://t.co/wem1WLSyz5 pic.twitter.com/yJCEUCCnsG
— Bill Christensen (@Technovelgy) June 27, 2025
- Natively multimodal text/vision/audio at both input and output.
- Matryoshka-style architecture allowing a dial of capability up and down at test time.
- Reasoning, also with a dial. (system 2)
- Aggressively tool-using.
- On-device finetuning LoRA slots for test-time training, personalization and customization.
- Delegates and double checks just the right parts with the oracles in the cloud if internet is available.
Fans of Star Trek recall the entity "Landru", an artificially intelligent computer system that ruled a planet in a 1967 episode The Return of the Archons.
An earlier example of such a self-aware system is the Vulcan 3 computer from Vulcan's Hammer, by Philip K. Dick, published by Ace Books in 1960.
Very little of the computer was visible; its bulk disappeared into regions which he had never seen, which in fact no human had ever seen... Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface, to be carted off, and the variety, amount, and nature of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.The financial cost of supporting Vulcan 3 was immense... At the latest estimate, Vulcan 3's share of the the taxes came to about forty-three percent.
Beneath his feet the floor vibrated... What lay down there? Energy, tubes and pipes, wiring, transformers, self-contained machinery... He had a mental image of relentless activity... worn-out parts replaced, new parts invented; superior designs replaced obsolete designs. And how far had it spread? Miles?
Vulcan 3 was aware of him. Across the vast impersonal face of metal an acknowledgment gleamed, a ribbon of fluid letters that appeared briefly and then vanished.
The games Machine from AE van Vogt's World of Null-A is a clear predecessor to the Vulcan 3 computer. Enjoy comparing Vulcan 3 to other computers large enough to run whole planets or societies: see the City Fathers from James Blish's Cities in Flight, Watchdog from Jack Haldeman's story of the same name, and Deep Thought from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
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