Drawing on Luhmann, Esposito, Wittgenstein and Brandom, Fenoglio argues that what language models lack is a position in the practices of commitment and assessment, not a behavioural capacity, so that “no behavioral evidence can satisfy a positional criterion, and this is by design rather than by evasion.”

SocioLens project,

Claim LD01-SL-C09 (v1.0)

Research opportunities this claim motivates

What this claim leaves open for research. Each is a hypothesis about a gap, not a finding.

Which observations does each account of generative AI forbid?One reading of the artificial-communication tradition holds that no behavioural evidence can satisfy its criterion.
When AI output goes wrong at work, who answers for it?One reading places what models lack in practices of commitment and assessment, not behaviour.

Provenance and status

Claim type: Interpretation
Publication status: Eligible for publication, with qualifiers: preprint
Verification state: Checked against the primary source; the source is a preprint. Who checked this claim is not recorded for it; claim checks so far were AI-led, and no person has checked claims against their sources.
Does not license: A statement of Esposito’s own view; this is one author’s reading of the tradition
Limitations: Read in arXiv version 1 (30 July 2026); single author; not peer-reviewed; a secondary account of Esposito, not her text
Source (as cited): Fenoglio, “Asymmetric Communication: Large Language Models and Language Games,” arXiv:2607.28137, 2026
Source type: Preprint (recorded as “Preprint”)
Institutional position: Independent academic (University College London)
Maturity of the evidence: Emerging evidence
Recorded date: 16 October 2026
Currentness / correction: This is the current version. No correction or concern is recorded on its sources.

Sources this version cites

Fenoglio, “Asymmetric Communication: Large Language Models and Language Games,” arXiv:2607.28137, 2026 (Preprint)
Read the original

Version

This is the current version, v1.0. Earlier versions stay available, and their records never change.

Versions: v1.0 · current

Raw record: every recorded field, with its coded values

All 25 canonical Claim fields, verbatim, with the coded values derived from them. The plain-language labels above are read from these.

Claim type (coded): INTERPRETATION (as printed: “INTERPRETATION”)
Publication status (coded): ELIGIBLE (PREPRINT) (as printed: “ELIGIBLE WITH PREPRINT QUALIFIER”)
Verification state (coded): CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY (PREPRINT)
Source type (coded): PREPRINT
Maturity (coded): EMERGING

#	Canonical field	Canonical value (verbatim)	Normalized (Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2)
1	CLAIM ID	LD01-SL-C09	—
2	PUBLIC-FACING CLAIM	Drawing on Luhmann, Esposito, Wittgenstein and Brandom, Fenoglio argues that what language models lack is a position in the practices of commitment and assessment, not a behavioural capacity, so that “no behavioral evidence can satisfy a positional criterion, and this is by design rather than by evasion.”	—
3	CLAIM TYPE	INTERPRETATION	base_types: INTERPRETATION
4	RESEARCH STRAND	A — What each account says generative AI is, and what it predicts	—
5	MATURITY	EMERGING	states: EMERGING
6	SOURCE	Fenoglio, “Asymmetric Communication: Large Language Models and Language Games,” arXiv:2607.28137, 2026	source_ids: SRC-SL-FENOGLIO-ARXIV-2607-28137
7	SOURCE TYPE	Preprint	classes: PREPRINT
8	INSTITUTIONAL POSITION	Independent academic (University College London)	—
9	SCOPE	Large language models in human communication; philosophical argument	—
10	DESIGN	Conceptual argument	—
11	SAMPLE / DATASET	Not applicable	—
12	MODEL / TOOL / VERSION	Large language models in general	—
13	COMPARATOR	Human participants in language games	—
14	MAIN RESULT	Attributions of general intelligence, agency and sentience to models are called “a single category mistake”; the conditions of asymmetric communication “are not empirical measurements” and hold whatever the system’s capability	—
15	INFERENTIAL TARGET	What the artificial-communication account says can and cannot be observed	—
16	DOES NOT LICENSE	A statement of Esposito’s own view; this is one author’s reading of the tradition	—
17	VERIFICATION STATE	CONTENT VERIFIED PREPRINT	state: CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY · qualifiers: PREPRINT · verified_by: UNKNOWN
18	LIMITATIONS	Read in arXiv version 1 (30 July 2026); single author; not peer-reviewed; a secondary account of Esposito, not her text	—
19	CONTRADICTORY / SUPPORTING SOURCES	LD01-SL-C08	—
20	GEOGRAPHY / LANGUAGE	Not applicable / English	—
21	DISTRIBUTIONAL LEDGER	Not analysed in this claim	—
22	R01 / FIELD-MAP LINKS	LD-01, T4, D7	—
23	WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS CLAIM?	A version of the account that names behavioural or institutional observables	—
24	PUBLICATION STATUS	ELIGIBLE WITH PREPRINT QUALIFIER	state: ELIGIBLE · qualifiers: PREPRINT
25	RECORDED DATE	2026-10-16	—

Field 22 references resolved against Field Map v0.2: LD-01 (LIVING_DEBATE); T4 (TENSION); D7 (DOMAIN)

The sources as recorded, with their record IDs and coded source types:

Pinned Sources (field 6, version-specific)

“Fenoglio, “Asymmetric Communication: Large Language Models and Language Games,” arXiv:2607.28137, 2026” → Fenoglio (2026), “Asymmetric Communication: Large…” (SRC-SL-FENOGLIO-ARXIV-2607-28137--v1.0) — Fenoglio, “Asymmetric Communication: Large Language Models and Language Games,” arXiv:2607.28137, 2026; class PREPRINT (explicit public provenance pin)

Cited by Living Debate versions

What kind of thing is generative AI, and does the answer predict anything? (v0.1) LD-01

Cite this page

SocioLens project. (2026, October 16). Drawing on Luhmann, Esposito, Wittgenstein and Brandom, Fenoglio argues that what language models lack is a position in the practices of commitment and assessment, not a behavioural capacity, so that “no behavioral evidence can satisfy a positional criterion, and this is by design rather than by evasion.” [Claim LD01-SL-C09, version v1.0]. SocioLens. https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld01-sl-c09/v1.0/

@misc{sociolens_ld01_sl_c09_v1_0,
  author = {{SocioLens project}},
  title = {Drawing on Luhmann, Esposito, Wittgenstein and Brandom, Fenoglio argues that what language models lack is a position in the practices of commitment and assessment, not a behavioural capacity, so that “no behavioral evidence can satisfy a positional criterion, and this is by design rather than by evasion.”},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-10-16},
  howpublished = {\url{https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld01-sl-c09/v1.0/}},
  note = {Claim LD01-SL-C09, version v1.0}
}

The link points to this version, whose record never changes. For a finding, cite the original study as well: SocioLens summarizes research and does not replace it.

Research-of-record provenance

Materialized by sociolens-materializer 0.6.0 at 2026-09-28T20:00:00.000Z; normalization contract SocioLens — Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2 — Pre-Spike Materialization Contract (v1.0.2). Content seal SHA-256 25474e62b751ba9722d58202c4cf1a2bc8a8f8f2d7b9f54694fb4bdaaae0acc7.

Repository-authored inputs (not Drive exports)

SocioLens claim — LD01-SL-C09 v1.0 (v1.0) — written in the SocioLens repository by Project Lead (Claude, AI) on 2026-10-16; no Drive identity exists. Authority: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 16 October 2026 to build the LD-01 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-01 source notes, checked against full texts, official web pages or official abstracts. Block “ENTRY 09 — LD01-SL-C09” SHA-256 c7f4cb48e676435d6d06643e0055c9657051349646c39a7fdfda31d2906e66a0; fixture fixtures/authored/claims/LD01-SL-C09--v1.0.

Builder decisions (not Drive data)

VERSION = v1.0 — basis: Claim version taken from the repository-authored claim fixture version (SocioLens claim — LD01-SL-C09 v1.0); the first version of a new Claim of the LD-01 debate
CURRENT_POINTER = true — basis: repository-authored claim "SocioLens claim — LD01-SL-C09 v1.0" (Project Lead (Claude, AI), 2026-10-16); basis: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 16 October 2026 to build the LD-01 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-01 source notes, checked against full texts, official web pages or official abstracts
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-SL-FENOGLIO-ARXIV-2607-28137--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 09 — LD01-SL-C09 cites "Fenoglio, “Asymmetric Communication: Large Language Models and Language Games,” arXiv:2607.28137, 2026"; the only field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's repository-authored ledger block.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-SL-FENOGLIO-ARXIV-2607-28137--v1.0 — basis: explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion (Amendment v1.2 §6): the pinned field-6 Source record "Fenoglio, “Asymmetric Communication: Large Language Models and Language Games,” arXiv:2607.28137, 2026".