LLMs Revive Protowriting

Archaeological analysis suggests humans used a repeatable 22-symbol system in the Upper Paleolithic that encoded information without mapping to speech; the article argues large language models and other digital tools are producing analogous, non-phonetic patterns of meaning in the present. Framing modern AI outputs as a form of 'protowriting' challenges the binary that sees literacy as either fully intact or dead and asks us to treat writing as an evolving set of affordances. — If true, this reframes debates about literacy, education and media regulation: policy should address changing symbolic practices, not just defend book‑reading or banish new forms as illiterate.