TY - JOUR
T1 - Illusory Arguments by Artificial Agents
T2 - Pernicious Legacy of the Sophists
AU - Clark, Micah H.
AU - Bringsjord, Selmer
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 by the authors.
PY - 2024/6
Y1 - 2024/6
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.3390/h13030082
DO - 10.3390/h13030082
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85196842833
SN - 2076-0787
VL - 13
JO - Humanities (Switzerland)
JF - Humanities (Switzerland)
IS - 3
M1 - 82
ER -