Illusory Arguments by Artificial Agents: Pernicious Legacy of the Sophists

Micah H. Clark, Selmer Bringsjord

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

To diagnose someone’s reasoning today as “sophistry” is to say that this reasoning is at once persuasive (at least to a significant degree) and logically invalid. We begin by explaining that, despite some recent scholarly arguments to the contrary, the understanding of ‘sophistry’ and ‘sophistic’ underlying such a lay diagnosis is in fact firmly in line with the hallmarks of reasoning proffered by the ancient sophists themselves. Next, we supply a rigorous but readable definition of what constitutes sophistic reasoning (=sophistry). We then discuss “artificial” sophistry: the articulation of sophistic reasoning facilitated by artificial intelligence (AI) and promulgated in our increasingly digital world. Next, we present, economically, a particular kind of artificial sophistry, one embodied by an artificial agent: the lying machine. Afterward, we respond to some anticipated objections. We end with a few speculative thoughts about the limits (or lack thereof) of artificial sophistry, and what may be a rather dark future.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number82
JournalHumanities (Switzerland)
Volume13
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2024

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General

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