Application: Names and the Mental Files Framework

Abstract

Abstract This chapter continues the process of anthropocentric abstraction, here concentrating on proper names. Do AI systems use proper names? Using our example of ‘SmartCredit’, it highlights problems concerning how to treat the output of an AI system when some, but not all or most, of the information in its neural network fails to apply to the individual we interpret the output to be about. After giving reasons to think the standard Kripkean theory might not work well here, it suggests an alternative theory of communication about particular entities, the mental file framework, which is more apt for theorizing about AI systems. It then abstracts from the human-centric features of extant theories of mental files to consider how AI might use something like them to refer to particulars.