Circling the void: Using Heidegger and Lacan to think about large language models

Abstract

The essay aims to unite two currently distinct lines of thinking and working with language. Large Language Models and continental philosophy, especially Martin Heidegger’s thinking about language and, building upon Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan’s structural psychoanalysis. We show that the concept of language that Heidegger, Freud and Lacan discuss and utilize in clinical frameworks is matched quite strongly by modern LLMs. This allows us to discuss a problem of negation and negativity that is central to the continental discourse but missing in current LLM research. This also means that we offer a radically different approach than is usual in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, since we base our concepts on thinkers that are often disregarded in the analytic philosophy discourse that is closer linked to AI research. To this end we also highlight, where the ontological differences of the proposed approach lie. However, our aim is to address AI researcher and continental philosophers.