Communicating with AI

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Every day, millions of people type questions into systems like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Deepseek and receive answers that appear strikingly human. These exchanges are rapidly becoming part of daily life--at work, in education, in healthcare, and in our social lives. But what, exactly, is happening when we "talk" with artificial intelligence? Do these systems understand us, or are we projecting understanding onto machines that in fact have none? Should we think of them as partners in communication, or as instruments that measure and model language? Communicating with AI: Philosophical Perspectives brings together leading philosophers to investigate these questions. The essays explore the foundations of meaning, the possibility of alien forms of thought and language, and the social and ethical challenges that arise when machines speak. Contributors debate whether LLM outputs have literal meaning, whether AI systems can be said to have beliefs or intentions, and how responsibility and trust should be understood in a world where machines produce speech acts. The volume also looks ahead to future architectures of artificial minds and the unsettling ethical possibilities of superintelligent systems reasoning about morality in ways that may diverge from human values. A central theme is methodological: how to think clearly about minds and communication without relying too heavily on human models. By comparing AI to animals, aliens, and even deities, the essays push readers to rethink what it means to understand and to be understood. Clear, rigorous, and deeply relevant, this volume offers an indispensable guide for anyone seeking to grasp the philosophical stakes of our emerging conversations with AI.

Herman Cappelen is Chair Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Director of the AI & Humanity Lab at HKU. He has made influential contributions to philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphilosophy. Cappelen's work addresses topics such as relativism, assertion, conceptual engineering, and the methodology of philosophy, with several widely cited books shaping contemporary debates. He has held professorships in Norway, Scotland, and the US, and is a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. His current research includes foundational issues in communication with artificial intelligence. Rachel Sterken is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). She works primarily in philosophy of language, with research spanning semantics, pragmatics, and the philosophy of mind. Her work focuses on generics, context sensitivity, and conceptual engineering. Sterken has published widely in leading journals and edited volumes, and she is increasingly engaged with questions at the intersection of philosophy of language and artificial intelligence. She previously held academic positions in Europe before joining HKU.