DOES AI HAVE AGENCY? With Professor. Karl Friston and Riddhi J. Pitliya

Memetic Language

Language is likened to a living organism, evolving rapidly within human culture while our DNA changes slowly. Tim Scarfe suggests that language might possess a form of agency, akin to a superorganism with its own goals, independent of human intention 1. Karl Friston counters this by emphasizing that agency requires planning, which language lacks, despite its role in facilitating communication and mutual predictability 2.

Language is an emergent property, and certainly, as such, will look as if it is a facilitator of self evidencing and intelligent processing. But in and of itself, it does not plan.

--- Karl Friston

This discussion highlights the complexity of defining agency in non-human systems and the unique role language plays in human cognition.

   

Language as Agent

The concept of language as an agent is explored, questioning whether it can influence and adapt like living entities. Tim Scarfe and Karl Friston debate whether language, through its emergent properties, can be considered to have agency 2. Friston suggests that while language can facilitate intelligent processing, it lacks the ability to plan, a key component of agency 3.

If agents are just defined by influencing states beyond the thing that they are...agency implies not just that you act upon the world like a thermostat or like the weather, or by natural selection, it actually means that you are implicitly a generative model of the future.

--- Karl Friston

This dialogue underscores the challenges in attributing agency to abstract systems like language.

   

Virtual Agents

Virtual agents, such as memes, are analyzed as non-physical entities that might act as agents. Tim Scarfe and Karl Friston discuss how memes, despite being virtual, can influence human behavior and culture, suggesting a form of agency 3. Friston acknowledges that these entities can have outcomes and interactions, which are essential characteristics of agency 4.

As soon as there is an outcome to the meme existing, for example, the virtual agent existing, there's an interaction that's occurring. That in itself is that object acting, producing an action, and resulting in a consequence.

--- Karl Friston

This exploration raises intriguing questions about the nature of agency in digital and non-material realms.