# How LLMs Understand Text: Context and Meaning in the AI Age

Canonical page: https://dominiklukes.net/speaking/llms-understand-text

Large Language Models represent an entirely new paradigm of semantic information processing. They are the first time a computer can process the meaning of text without mark-up. Their ability to 'understand' text is at the same time familiarly human and completely alien. This talk outlines how Large Language Models 'read' and 'understand' text, and how they generate their response, contrasting with how humans perform the same tasks.

Talk · Kellogg College, Oxford · 17 November 2025

## Where it lives

- [Watch the recording (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvfV8N7SwwY)
- [Event page](https://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/events/how-llms-understand-text-context-and-meaning-in-the-ai-age/)

## About this item

- Type: Talk
- Date: 17 November 2025
- Time: 17:30-18:30
- Venue: Kellogg College, Oxford
- Place: The Hub

Topics: How LLMs 'read' and 'understand' text, How humans deploy attention, working memory and external tools for complex text, The contrast between human and model approaches to text processing.

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