Intentionality and LLMs: The Philosophy of Mind and Large Language Models

The philosophical term of art "intentionality" is touted as a defining feature of human minds whose scientific intractability stands in the way of artificial general intelligence.

But what is intentionality? Is it a well-carved property? Is it different from "qualia" or phenomenal consciousness? Are the two mutually dependent? Or does one ground the latter?

Recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) have again brought artificial intelligence to the forefront of cultural consciousness. The release of ChatGPT in 2023 reignited interest in the narrowing gap between human and artificial intelligence, the prospect of artificial general intelligence (AGI), and the meaning of these advances for humanity. Does ChatGPT pass the Turing Test? Do LLMs presage a looming AGI or have artificial neural networks finally plateaued with respect to their AGI aspirations?

In this meetup, we revisit some old philosophical debates in light of the cultural brouhaha incited by ChatGPT and attendant Transformer-based models. Does ChatGPT have intentionality? Are consciousness and intentionality even relevant to the debate? Are they irrelevant to general intelligence?

Across the last several decades the battlefield of philosophical debate has crystalized into those who think intentionality is a precondition for consciousness, linguistic meaning, and genuine reference, and those who think that it's much ado about nothing. To the former camp, to take one example, computers don't have intentionality but are products of genuine human intentionality. To the latter camp, the distinction between genuine/original and derived intentionality is spurious. Have recent advances in LLMs (and perhaps diffusion-based models) cleared some of the fog surrounding this debate?

In this meetup, we'll discuss intentionality as a concept, its connection to semantic meaning and phenomenal consciousness, as well as the implications these properties might have for achieving artificial general intelligence. If unfamiliar with the philosophical jargon please read this SEP entry for Intentionality. Please also read the essays included below as they provide a glimpse into the state of the art scholarship surrounding this debate.

***Mandatory readings for those who have no familiarity with the literature and the terms of art:

Facing up to the Problem of Intentionality (Mendelovici & Bourget, 2023)
The Extended Mind Argument Against Phenomenal Intentionality (Turner, 2021)