Löhr, Guido (2025) Chatbots and Speech Act Responsibility Gaps. [Preprint]

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Abstract

I argue that chatbots create a peculiar new kind of responsibility gap, which I call the “speech act responsibility gap”. Unlike the responsibility gaps commonly discussed in the context of self-driving cars and autonomous weapons, speech act responsibility gaps arise from the fact that paradigmatic speech acts like assertions (statements), promises or orders always generate linguistic commitments and entitlements. Unlike more familiar kinds of responsibility gaps, speech act responsibility gaps are inherently interpersonal and directed. I first argue that currently dominant treatments of chatbot speech acts as proxy agents cannot bridge these gaps. I also discuss why current arguments against the existence of responsibility gaps don’t apply in the case of chatbots. Instead, responsibility appears to be best attributed to the chatbot itself. However, this poses a dilemma. Either these machines don’t speak (we are fundamentally mistaken about their output), or we need to engineer (broaden) our notion of responsibility.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Löhr, Guido loehrg@icloud.com 0000-0002-7028-3515
Keywords:	Speech Acts; Responsibility Gaps; AI; Large Language Models; Chatbots; Conceptual Disruption; Conceptual Engineering; AI Assertion; Assertions; Entitlements
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence > AI and Ethics Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > Ethical Issues
Depositing User:	Mr. Guido Löhr
Date Deposited:	29 Mar 2025 13:49
Last Modified:	29 Mar 2025 13:49
Item ID:	24969
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence > AI and Ethics Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > Ethical Issues
Date:	2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24969

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