This paper examines large language models (LLMs) through Elena Esposito’s concept of “artificial communication,” arguing that this framework helps us understand LLMs as instantiations of what Marx called the “humanization of nature.” Rather than viewing LLMs as possessing human-like intelligence, Esposito conceptualizes them as artificial participants in communicative processes that process information statistically without understanding. This perspective situates LLMs within human practices and…
Read moreThis paper examines large language models (LLMs) through Elena Esposito’s concept of “artificial communication,” arguing that this framework helps us understand LLMs as instantiations of what Marx called the “humanization of nature.” Rather than viewing LLMs as possessing human-like intelligence, Esposito conceptualizes them as artificial participants in communicative processes that process information statistically without understanding. This perspective situates LLMs within human practices and reveals them as realizations of our communicative capacities and embodiments of our social relations. Under capitalism, the objectification of human life-activity in LLMs becomes alienation, human capacities realized into forms that return to dominate their creators. The contradictions arising from this dialectical process define the terrain for transformative praxis, offering potential resolutions to Esposito’s problem of “control over control.” Addressing the underlying social relations embedded in these systems enables a collective reappropriation of artificial communication that preserves meaning, ambiguity, and uncertainty within human flourishing.
