Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 231.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2025-11-22 22:54:15+00:00
        From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.229: LLMs and their bullshit potential

Dear Maurizio,

To what, I wondered, was your attention drawn here, and your
action thus cast upon?

For I wondered if you, and perhaps others here, might also be
drawn to this for some further reckoning.

    Beatrice Marchegiani, 2025.  Anthropomorphism, False
    Beliefs, and Conversational AIs: How Chatbots Undermine
    Users' Autonomy, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 42, 5, pp
    1399-1419. <https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.70008>

I reckon this usefully adds to the impressive set of works
assembled by Olya Kudina and Mark Alfano.

For a different, non-philosophical, treatment of the same
topic, this, which does have a strong ethical ground base line
to it, deserves attention in our reckoning too, I think.

    Loneliness We Built, by Carlo Iacono, November 17, 2025
    <https://hybridhorizons.substack.com/p/loneliness-we-built>

This use of this particular kind of Generative AI system shows
up a lack of collective human intelligence, which is perhaps
the real contribution of all this bullshit.

-- Tim



> On 22 Nov 2025, at 10:32, Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
>
>
>              Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 229.
>        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
>                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
>                       www.dhhumanist.org
>                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
>        Date: 2025-11-21 13:21:39+00:00
>        From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
>        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.225: LLMs and their bullshit potential
>
> attention drawn! with subsequent action
> Maurizio
>
> Il 20/11/25 14:17, Humanist ha scritto:
>> This is to draw your attention to a collection of papers in Ethics and
>> Information Technology under the heading "Large Language Models: A
>> Philosophical Reckoning", ed. Olya Kudina and Mark Alfano
>> (https://link.springer.com/collections/fajiigfiih)
>>
>> The collection includes the following:
>>
>> Large language models and their big bullshit potential
>> Sarah A. Fisher
>>
>> An Ellulian analysis of propaganda in the context of generative AI
>> Xiaomei Bi
>> Xingyuan Su
>> Xiaoyan Liu
>>
>> Easy-read and large language models: on the ethical dimensions of
>> LLM-based text simplification
>> Nils Freyer
>> Hendrik Kempt
>> Lars Klöser
>>
>> The hidden influence: exploring presence in human-synthetic interactions
>> through ghostbots
>> Andrew McStay
>>
>> Beyond transparency and explainability: on the need for adequate and
>> contextualized user guidelines for LLM use
>> Kristian González Barman
>> Nathan Wood
>> Pawel Pawlowski
>>
>> Negotiating becoming: a Nietzschean critique of large language models
>> Simon W. S. Fischer
>> Bas de Boer
>>
>> A phenomenology and epistemology of large language models: transparency,
>> trust, and trustworthiness
>> Richard Heersmink
>> Barend de Rooij
>> Matteo Colombo
>>
>> ChatGPT is bullshit
>> Michael Townsen Hicks
>> James Humphries
>> Joe Slater
>>
>> Getting it right: the limits of fine-tuning large language models
>> Jacob Browning
>>
>> Diversity and language technology: how language modeling bias causes
>> epistemic injustice
>> Paula Helm
>> Gábor Bella
>> Fausto Giunchiglia
>>
>>
>> --
>> Willard McCarty,
>> Professor emeritus, King's College London;
>> Editor, Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts,
>>    Sciences and Humanities (Berghahn); Humanist
>> www.mccarty.org.uk
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> che faresti se vivessi così?
> mau mau, con chi fugge
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Maurizio Lana
> Università del Piemonte Orientale
> Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
> Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli



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