{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,12]],"date-time":"2026-10-12T09:48:04Z","timestamp":1791798484619,"version":"4.3.4"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,12]],"date-time":"2026-10-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1791763200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Can a computer programme like ChatGPT perform speech acts such as making a promise, offering a guarantee, or firing an employee? This is an increasingly pressing question as AI technologies supplement or replace human communication, especially in the workplace. Philosophers typically maintain that artificial speakers at best perform \u2018proto\u2019 or \u2018quasi\u2019 speech acts. In contrast, I argue that in some contexts artificial speakers can perform speech acts in precisely the same way as humans. This is because the rules and norms governing speech act performance (for AI and for us) are more context-variable than it is usually thought. This is most clear in highly regulated contexts, where speech act norms are often determined by legislation or policy, but is also a feature of ordinary communication. The question then becomes not simply whether artificial speakers can perform speech acts, but whether we should allow them to.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/pq\/pqag076","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]],"date-time":"2026-09-29T11:37:50Z","timestamp":1790681870000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Artificial speakers, artificial speech acts?"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3107-2675","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chris","family":"Cousens","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Glasgow ,","place":["UK"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib1","volume-title":"How to Do Things with Words","author":"Austin","year":"1962"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib2","author":"B2B Reviews","year":"2025","journal-title":"HR Challenges in the Tech Industry"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib3","volume-title":"Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts","author":"Bach","year":"1979"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"610","DOI":"10.1145\/3442188.3445922","article-title":"On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models be Too Big?","volume-title":"FAccT: Proceedings of the 2021ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency","author":"Bender","year":"2021"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1111\/1468-0114.00137","article-title":"Illocutionary Silencing","volume":"83","author":"Bird","year":"2002","journal-title":"Pacific Philosophical Quarterly"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib6","first-page":"968","article-title":"AI Assertion","volume":"12","author":"Butlin","year":"2025","journal-title":"Ergo"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib7","first-page":"2399","article-title":"Undoing Things with Words","volume":"197\/6","author":"Caponetto","year":"2018","journal-title":"Synthese"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"577","DOI":"10.1007\/s10677-022-10334-4","article-title":"Bending as Counterspeech","volume":"26","author":"Caponetto","year":"2022","journal-title":"Ethical Theory and Moral Practice"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"615","DOI":"10.1007\/s11406-011-9317-6","article-title":"Norms of Assertion: the Quantity and Quality of Epistemic Support","volume":"39","author":"Carter","year":"2011","journal-title":"Philosophia"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s11229-023-04395-w","article-title":"Tweet Acts and Quote-tweetable Acts","volume":"202","author":"Cousens","year":"2023","journal-title":"Synthese"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"467","DOI":"10.1080\/02691728.2024.2316622","article-title":"AI Testimony, Conversational AIs, and Our Anthropocentric Theory of Testimony","volume":"38","author":"Freiman","year":"2024","journal-title":"Social Epistemology"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib12","first-page":"415","article-title":"Can Artificial Entities Assert?","volume-title":"The Oxford Handbook of Assertion","author":"Freiman","year":"2020"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"357","DOI":"10.1007\/s11245-023-09908-3","article-title":"On the Genealogy and Potential Abuse of Assertoric Norms","volume":"42","author":"Green","year":"2023","journal-title":"Topoi"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"323","DOI":"10.1007\/s11023-022-09589-8","article-title":"What Might Machines Mean?","volume":"32","author":"Green","year":"2022","journal-title":"Minds and Machines"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"197","DOI":"10.1093\/acprof:oso\/9780199573004.003.0009","article-title":"Truth-relativism, Norm-relativism, and assertion","volume-title":"Assertion: New Philosophical Essays","author":"Greenough","year":"2011"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"377","DOI":"10.2307\/2182440","article-title":"Meaning","volume":"66","author":"Grice","year":"1957","journal-title":"The Philosophical Review"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s13347-024-00696-1","article-title":"Large Language Models, Agency, and Why Speech Acts Are beyond Them (for now): a Kantian-cum-pragmatist Case","volume":"37","author":"Gubelmann","year":"2024","journal-title":"Philosophy and Technology"},{"key":"2026101205125103900_bib18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"539","DOI":"10.1093\/pq\/pqae003","article-title":"Whose Uptake Matters? 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