CFP: New Work on TOM 2 - interacting with LLMs

Generally, it is assumed that human communication is special in the sense that it allows for grasping a speaker’s intention beyond of what is simply verbally said. Recent researchers have claimed that LLMs may exhibit behaviour similar enough to ours, when it comes to theory of mind tasks, such as the False Belief Task (Strachan, 2024; Kosinski 2024). Kosinski argues that ToM- like abilities in LLMs may have emerged as a by-product of language ability (2024:2). The question that arises is if LLMs ability to perform well on some linguistic tasks actually entails real capacities in the social-cognition domain.

Can LLMs infer or grasp what could have been said? What about what it’s left unsaid? Can they grasp the speaker’s intentions beyond what is written in the chat, or verbally said, and can they grasp deception? Are LLMs capable of assertion, and if so, does it entail they are capable of expressing beliefs? Are they capable of mindreading?

We encourage BA, MA, as well as early PhD's and postdocs, to contribute research abstracts related to the event's topic areas. Abstracts should be written in English and should not exceed 300 words. Abstracts will receive full consideration if sent before February 18th, 2025 at the following address: [email protected]

We welcome papers that address (but are not limited to) the following issues:

• Game theory approaches to the use of indirect speech acts and/or to identifying deception
• The relationship between language, pragmatic abilities (use of language) and TOM abilities
•  Embodied approaches and the role of extralinguistic contexts in grasping speech acts

Word or PDF attachments are preferred, with the message titled "abstract submission".All submissions will go through a process of blind peer review. (Please write your identifying details in the body of the email, and leave the attached abstract anonymized.)

We intend notifications of acceptance to be sent out on or before March 1st, 2025. The conference programme will be announced as soon as review is completed.  For any questions, please don't hesitate to email  [email protected]