Wittgenstein and the formal sciences 4

Diego Morales (Eindhoven University of Technology),
Title: Wittgenstein on the Infelicity of the Question “Can Machines Think?” 

This presentation will be about the language that we employ when we talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and how Wittgenstein’s philosophy may provide valuable insights to understand its challenges. In particular, I am interested in addressing a concern related to the use of cognitive and psychological terms when describing the attributes and abilities of AI systems and AI-enabled agents. This worry may be stated as follows: Cognitive and psychological terms, that is, terms that denote cognitive processes and psychological states, have become part of the basic lexicon of the field of AI. As such, it is customary to say that some AI entities infer, understand, and learn; some are thought of as being capable of holding beliefs, acquiring knowledge and having hallucinations, and some as possessing attentive capacities, memory, and instantiating neural networks. However, more often than not, cognitive and psychological terms fail to accurately depict how AI entities actually are and what they can actually do. In fact, the worry goes, these terms contribute to the formation of a mirage: they support misrepresentations of properties and capabilities of AI, and they elicit misguided expectations about their performance. Despite this concern being recognized within the AI field, its underlying causes have received limited contemporary attention. In this talk, I aim to fill this gap by drawing on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. His reflections on the semantics of psychological predicates and their use to describe machines provide interesting insights to frame the worry mentioned above, understand why it arises, and explain its persistence. The first part of the talk will introduce the main concern regarding the use of cognitive and psychological terms in contemporary AI. The second part will delve into Wittgenstein’s insights, offering an explanation of the issue based on his philosophy.

Wittgenstein and Mathematical Understanding

Wei Zeng

The nature of understanding is one of the central topics of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigation. In contrast to conceiving understanding as a mental process, Wittgenstein urges us to shift our focus from deciphering the mental state of the 'Aha moment' to observing the circumstances under which we are convinced that we know how to go on. Avigad (2008) extends this perspective of Wittgenstein in PI to his discussion of mathematical understanding, and proposes that mathematical understanding should be understood in terms of a group of abilities. However, in Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics, Wittgenstein presents a more nuanced view of mathematical understanding. In this talk, I argue that while the central idea of Wittgenstein’s conception of mathematical understanding is that in order to claim one understands a mathematical proposition or proof one must have a clear view of its application, his account of mathematical understanding has a layer of complexity not present in his general account of understanding. Moreover, I posit that Wittgenstein’s account challenges the view that understanding is merely the consequence of explanation.