Social AI and The Equation of Wittgenstein's Language User With Calvino's Literature Machine
This addresses a philosophical issue relevant to AI ethics and human-AI interaction, but it is incremental as it builds on existing ideas from Wittgenstein and Calvino.
This paper tackles the problem of whether it is justified to ascribe psychological traits like emotions or consciousness to AI systems such as chatbots based on large language models (LLMs), arguing that while LLMs can be seen as language users in a Wittgensteinian sense, they are more akin to Calvino's literature machines and lack the autopoiesis needed for genuine psychological ascriptions.
Is it sensical to ascribe psychological predicates to AI systems like chatbots based on large language models (LLMs)? People have intuitively started ascribing emotions or consciousness to social AI ('affective artificial agents'), with consequences that range from love to suicide. The philosophical question of whether such ascriptions are warranted is thus very relevant. This paper advances the argument that LLMs instantiate language users in Ludwig Wittgenstein's sense but that ascribing psychological predicates to these systems remains a functionalist temptation. Social AIs are not full-blown language users, but rather more like Italo Calvino's literature machines. The ideas of LLMs as Wittgensteinian language users and Calvino's literature-producing writing machine are combined. This sheds light on the misguided functionalist temptation inherent in moving from equating the two to the ascription of psychological predicates to social AI. Finally, the framework of mortal computation is used to show that social AIs lack the basic autopoiesis needed for narrative façons de parler and their role in the sensemaking of human (inter)action. Such psychological predicate ascriptions could make sense: the transition 'from quantity to quality' can take place, but its route lies somewhere between life and death, not between affective artifacts and emotion approximation by literature machines.