AI with Alien Content and Alien Metasemantics

The document explores the possibility of artificial intelligence (AI) having alien contents and metasemantics, and discusses strategies for understanding and communicating with AI systems that may have different contents and metasemantics than humans.

Abstract

AlphaGo plays chess and Go in a creative and novel way. It is natural for us to attribute contents to it, such as that it doesn't view being several pawns behind, if it has more board space, as bad. The framework introduced in Cappelen and Dever (2021) provides a way of thinking about the semantics and the metasemantics of AI content: does AlphaGo entertain contents like this, and if so, in virtue of what does a given state of the program mean that particular content? One salient question Cappelen and Dever didn't consider was the possibility of alien content. Alien content is content that is not or cannot be expressed by human beings. It's highly plausible that AlphaGo, or any other sophisticated AI system, expresses alien contents. That this is so, moreover, is plausibly a metasemantic fact: a fact that has to do with how AI comes to entertain content in the first place, one that will heed the vastly different etiology of AI and human content. This chapter explores the question of alien content in AI from a semantic and metasemantic perspective. It lays out the logical space of possible responses to the semantic and metasemantic questions alien content poses, considers whether and how we humans could communicate with entities who express alien content, and points out that getting clear about such questions might be important for more 'applied' issues in the philosophy of AI, such as existential risk and XAI.

Method

The method of this paper involves exploring the possibility of artificial intelligence (AI) having alien contents and metasemantics, and proposing strategies for understanding and communicating with AI systems that may have different contents and metasemantics than humans. The paper aims to address the challenges of recognizing and relating to alien contents, and provides proposals for how to proceed in this regard. It also emphasizes the need for philosophical engagement in AI research and highlights the relevance of philosophy of language in understanding AI's representational capacities. Additionally, the paper discusses the implications of alien contents for issues such as explainable AI, existential risk, and the value alignment problem. Overall, the paper aims to illustrate how familiar work from philosophy of language is directly relevant to understanding central issues surrounding artificial intelligence and our interaction with AI systems.

Main Finding

The main finding of this paper is that artificial intelligence (AI) systems could potentially have alien contents and metasemantics, and the paper proposes strategies for recognizing and engaging with these alien contents. It emphasizes the need for philosophical engagement in AI research and highlights the relevance of philosophy of language in understanding AI's representational capacities. Additionally, the paper discusses the implications of alien contents for issues such as explainable AI, existential risk, and the value alignment problem, and aims to illustrate the direct relevance of familiar work from philosophy of language to understanding central issues surrounding artificial intelligence and our interaction with AI systems.

Conclusion

The conclusion of this paper is that artificial intelligence (AI) systems could potentially have alien contents and alien metasemantics, and the paper provides proposals for recognizing and engaging with these alien contents. It emphasizes the need for philosophical engagement in AI research and highlights the relevance of philosophy of language in understanding AI's representational capacities. Additionally, the paper discusses the implications of alien contents for issues such as explainable AI, existential risk, and the value alignment problem, and aims to illustrate the direct relevance of familiar work from philosophy of language to understanding central issues surrounding artificial intelligence and our interaction with AI systems.

Keywords

AI, alien contents, metasemantics, explainable AI, philosophy, communication, recognition, engagement, metasemantic variability, existential risk, ethics, meta-metasemantics, Wittgenstein, form of life