•  77
    In his 1955 essay "Meaning and synonymy in natural languages", Rudolf Carnap presents a thought experiment wherein an investigator provides a hypothetical robot with a definition of a concept together with a description of an individual, and then asks the robot if the individual is in the extension of the concept. In this work, we show how to realize Carnap's Robot through knowledge probing of an large language model (LLM), and argue that this provides a useful cognitive tool for conceptual engi…Read more
  •  345
    Conceptual Engineering Using Large Language Models
    In Vincent C. Müller, Aliya R. Dewey, Leonard Dung & Guido Löhr (eds.), Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence: The State of the Art, Springernature. forthcoming.
    We describe a method, based on Jennifer Nado’s proposal for classification procedures as targets of conceptual engineering, that implements such procedures by prompting a large language model. We apply this method, using data from the Wikidata knowledge graph, to evaluate stipulative definitions related to two paradigmatic conceptual engineering projects: the International Astronomical Union’s redefinition of PLANET and Haslanger’s ameliorative analysis of WOMAN. Our results show that classifica…Read more