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)

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Limitations: Read in arXiv version 1 (30 July 2026); single author; not peer-reviewed; a secondary account of Esposito, not her text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 page shows version v1.0. Its record never changes, even when newer evidence arrives; the site may add a note to the page or withhold a figure not cleared for public use.

This pinned version is also the current version.

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".