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Area of Science:

  • Techno-semiotics
  • Cognitive Science
  • Systems Theory

Background:

  • Current Large Language Models (LLMs) discourse often uses deficit metaphors (e.g., "bullshit," "stochastic parrots"), focusing on perceived lacks in grounding, belief, or intention.
  • These framings obscure the practical utility of LLMs in sense-making, ideation, and communication processes.
  • A need exists for a non-anthropomorphic framework to understand LLM functionality within human-computer interaction.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To reframe Large Language Models (LLMs) not as entities with agency or understanding, but as functional operators within techno-semiotic assemblages.
  • To develop a theoretical model, GECOS (General Cognitive Shortcuts), that explains LLM utility in terms of communicative complexity reduction and interactional continuity.
  • To shift focus from ontological debates about LLM "understanding" to their operational role in distributed sense-making.

Main Methods:

  • Integration of concepts from Luhmannian systems theory, Deleuzian ontology, and Husserlian phenomenology.
  • Application of conceptual analysis as a functional-comparative synthesis method.
  • Analysis of human-LLM interaction without attributing anthropomorphic qualities like agency, belief, or understanding to the LLM.

Main Results:

  • LLMs, reframed as GECOS, reduce communicative complexity by approximating "second-order expectations," facilitating interactional continuity.
  • The GECOS framework explains LLM usefulness through procedural plausibility and coherence, helping users navigate uncertainty via Luhmann's contingency formula.
  • LLMs enable workable continuations by generating connectable text, independent of truth or intentionality.

Conclusions:

  • The GECOS framework provides a non-anthropomorphic model for understanding LLMs as pragmatic operators in complex socio-technical environments.
  • This reframing shifts attention from LLM "understanding" to their operational role in distributed sense-making and communication.
  • Potential risks include overreliance, emotional projection, and normative flattening when connectability replaces justification.