CFP: LLM talk: the post-evolution of speech acts

This is an international conference, held March 21-22, 2025, in hybrid format at the University of Bucharest, Romania. A call for abstracts is below.

The conference is part of "The effects of LLM interaction in digital and virtual environments on TOM" ICUB grant in enhancing institutional performance at the University of Bucharest, gathering a research team from Philosophy, Linguistics, Cognitive Psychology and Evolutionary Biology.

A twin conference, "New Work in the Theory of Mind 2: interacting with large language models", held March 21-22 still, devoted to graduate students, postdocs and early career scholars, is organized in partnership between the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Psychology and Education Science, through its Department for Cognitive Science. More details about that event, including a call for abstracts for students and early career scholars, is here: https://philevents.org/event/show/132170

Both conferences target the post-evolutionary roles speech acts exhibit, starting from producing and decoding speech acts, to how we interpret the seemingly communicative behaviour of large language models, with a focus on social contexts that usually rely on mindreading (e.g. empathetic chats with bots).

The conference will have a mixed format, in that speakers may choose whether they present online only or face to face at the event's location (if so, their session will enjoy a live audience, but it will also be streamed to remote participants). Regular presentations will be 30 minutes long, followed by 10 minutes long Q&A and 10 minutes breaks.

The conference comes on the heels of "The Evolutionary Origins of Speech Acts" international hybrid workshop, held May 17th, 2023, with keynotes Mitch Green (Connecticut) and Bart Geurts (Radboud). More details about that event here: https://philevents.org/event/show/109005 Professor Green has confirmed attendance as a keynote speaker in the 2025 events too.

Panels include:

·        Do machines mean anything, and if so, what might that be?

·        Are machines capable of assertion?

·        How does human dialogue and the human-machine dialogue differ?  - game theory approaches

·        Can LLMs decode/ grasp speech acts of refusals and complaints in VR?

·        Game theory approaches to the use of indirect speech acts

·        Alternatives and variability in pragmatic inferences

Call for abstracts

We encourage researchers at all levels to contribute abstracts related to ongoing and recent approaches to LLM-related speech acts and/or how these relate (or shift) the evolutionary origins of communicative acts.

Abstracts should be written in English and should not exceed 300 words (excluding references). Abstracts will receive full consideration if sent before February 20th to [email protected] as PDF attachments with the message titled "Speech acts 2, abstract submission". They will go through blind peer review from a local scientific committee. (Identifying details in the email body, abstract anonymized.) Notifications of acceptance to be sent out on March 1st.

For any questions, email [email protected] Non-speakers register at the same address on or before March 10th to receive Zoom details.