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Abstract

With the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs), scholars are starting to discuss the epistemological problems related to them. Recently, there are literatures that argue on the topic of whether LLMs’ outputs can be classified as testimony. Scholars give arguments that they cannot be classified as testimony by the reason that LLMs do not satisfy varies conditions. This paper introduces and analyize these conditions. And further argues that even if LLMs can satisfy all the said conditions in the future. However, by way they understand the content of their own outputs is fundamentally different from humans. Therefore, we still cannot classify LLMs’ outputs as testimony.

Bio

Lai Hei Wai is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Macau. He began his studies at Fu Jen Catholic University BA in Philosophy (2009-2014) and MA in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at The University of Saint Joseph (2020-2023). His research interests focus on topics related to epistemology, particularly in the epistemology of testimony.