Strategic Polysemy in AI Discourse: A Philosophical Analysis of Language, Hype, and Power
This paper examines the strategic use of language in contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) discourse, focusing on the widespread adoption of metaphorical or colloquial terms like "hallucination", "chain-of-thought", "introspection", "language model", "alignment", and "agent". We argue that many such terms exhibit strategic polysemy: they sustain multiple interpretations simultaneously, combining narrow technical definitions with broader anthropomorphic or common-sense associations. In contem
Record details
Published: 22 April 2026
Source: arXiv
Category: Research
Topics: Safety & alignment · Agents & autonomy
Retrieved: 14 July 2026
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ethics.ai (22 April 2026), “Strategic Polysemy in AI Discourse: A Philosophical Analysis of Language, Hype, and Power,” evidence record 5482, https://ethics.ai/record/5482 (originally published by arXiv).
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