Perhaps the latest article in my string of 2025 articles that state the obvious, but this just hit me:

Text is language

A better explanation is: text and language are isomorphic. A linear sequence of sounds (or glyphs) that create meaning in the receiver. A self-referential representation of the world. A representation that can leverage other forms of information (images, non-language sounds, mathematics).

Any triumph of text, then, is really a triumph of language. This has interesting implications for the design of digital systems, particularly interfaces. Text is a way to directly leverage the powerful mechanisms of human language.

And perhaps it is no coincidence that the breakthrough AI technology turned out to be a language model.