List, Jon, Jon, thanks for posting the abstract of Cathy Legg's interesting, timely and, in my view, important chapter, "Peirce and Generative AI," to appear in the forthcoming, *Pragmatism Revisited. See: * https://www.academia.edu/127744327/Peirce_and_Generative_AI. I read it yesterday and found it to be solid in its research methodology, argumentation, and conclusions.
The importance of her chapter for Peirce scholars -- and for AI engineers who might hope to address AI's present weaknesses -- lies in the possible consequences of applying Peirce’s semiotics to the challenges and limitations of genAI. Legg clearly sees the promise, challenges, and dangers inherent in genAI yet, since it appears that it will likely be here to stay in one form or another, that it ought to be as logically -- *meaningfully* -- sound as is possible. She argues that Peirce's "pragmatist epistemology" provides a framework for both understanding and improving AI’s role as a cognitive tool. Comparing the elements of signification of AI to Peirce’s triadic model of signs involving not only symbols, but also indices, and icons, one sees the limitations of AI’s essentially *symbolic *processing and its deficiencies in indexical and iconic signification, all three of which Legg views as essential for genuine meaning-making in the quest for real knowledge and truth. She begins her argumentation with a discussion of meaning, contrasting Peirce’s public and dynamic model of sign interpretation with the Cartesian private, static approach, which early AI engineers adopted. While LLMs (Large Language Models) learn meanings through statistical associations, they lack connections to real-world objects (i.e., they lack real indices) and logical (iconic) structures, thus limiting their ability to perform true 'artificial sign interpretation'. Without these AI generated text remains but a mirror of human discourse rather than an active participant in authentic meaning-making. Legg quotes Peirce that “a sign is not a sign unless it translates itself into another sign in which it is more fully developed” and that “no present actual thought [. . .] has any meaning, any intellectual value; for this lies not in what is actually thought, but in what this thought may be connected with in representation by subsequent thoughts; so that the meaning of a thought is altogether something virtual.” She argues that Peirce’s epistemology further challenges mainstream "representationalist realism" which treats truth as but a correspondence between propositions and discrete facts, contrasting it to Peirce’s "rich relational realism*." *She quotes S. Vallor that “today’s most advanced AI systems are constructed as immense mirrors of human intelligence. They do not think for themselves; instead, they generate complex reflections cast by our recorded thoughts, judgments, desires, needs, perceptions, expectations, and imaginings.” So Legg concludes that while AI might assist human inquiry, it cannot -- at least not yet -- function as an *autonomous inquirer* because it lacks the necessary semiotic relations to reality, viz. true indexes and icons. Peirce’s vision of knowledge as a living, growing body of truth suggests that to be 'genuinely epistemic' AI must engage in dynamic, interactive reasoning beyond mere 'pattern recognition' (as Gary Furhman has also recently suggested). This insight challenges AI engineers to design systems that do more than produce 'plausible' text; they must integrate signs (including icons and indices) in ways that truly reflect the structure of reality. I hope this short summary helps to suggest the depth and richness of Cathy's argumentation which includes a brief history of the development of AI, LLMs, etc., how, for example, early AI research relied on explicit representations of facts and rules, followed by a shift to deep learning and neural networks, thus leading to LLMs capable of generating intelligible text. I encourage interested List members to read her chapter which, as Jon noted, can be found (along with many other of Legg's excellent papers) at Academia (see the link in the first paragraph above). Best, Gary R On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 9:10 AM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> wrote: > List: > > Since (so-called) "artificial intelligence" was a topic of discussion here > recently, I thought that it might be of interest that Catherine Legg wrote > a chapter on "Peirce and Generative AI" for a forthcoming book that Robert > Lane is editing, *Pragmatism Revisited*, and has posted the > prepublication version at > https://www.academia.edu/127744327/Peirce_and_Generative_AI. Here is the > abstract. > > Early artificial intelligence research was dominated by intellectualist > assumptions, producing explicit representation of facts and rules in “good > old-fashioned AI”. After this approach foundered, emphasis shifted to deep > learning in neural networks, leading to the creation of Large Language > Models which have shown remarkable capacity to automatically generate > intelligible texts. This new phase of AI is already producing profound > social consequences which invite philosophical reflection. This paper > argues that Charles Peirce’s philosophy throws valuable light on genAI’s > capabilities first with regard to meaning, then knowledge and truth. > Firstly, I explore how Peirce’s icon/index/symbol distinction illuminates > the functioning of genAI. I argue that genAI’s engineers have skilfully > captured a form of symbolicity, but no other sign-kind. In lacking > indexical signs, LLMs lack connection with, and accountability to, > particular worldly objects. In lacking iconic signs, LLMs are > insufficiently disciplined by structural – most notably logical – > relationships. Then I argue that GenAI’s astounding stream of articulate, > truth-semblant, yet worthless texts issues a timely reckoning to modern > philosophy’s representational realism. By contrast, Peirce’s pragmatism > scaffolds a rich relational realism (Gili and Maddalena 2022), which shows > how meaningful concepts, and a grasp of truth, can only occur across > multiple cognitive systems who are simultaneously richly related with one > another, and a shared environment in which they continually act and receive > feedback, within a logical space of reasons. As Peirce himself noted, “Mere > knowledge, though it be systematized, may be a dead memory; while by > science we all habitually mean a living and growing body of truth”. > > > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ > ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at > https://cspeirce.com and, just as well, at > https://www.cspeirce.com . It'll take a while to repair / update all the > links! > ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] > . > ► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] > with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in > the body. More at https://list.iu.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html . > ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and > co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at https://cspeirce.com and, just as well, at https://www.cspeirce.com . It'll take a while to repair / update all the links! ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . ► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the body. More at https://list.iu.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
