Juan César Hernández León (Bio)

More than imitation: Chatbots as simulation of the Other. On some ontological implications.

The commercial success of chatbots is not accidental; it stems from psychological and philosophical factors that become manifest in every interaction. The systematic use of the pronoun “I” in these systems operates on both levels: psychologically, it triggers anthropomorphism (the attribution of human traits), and philosophically, it posits them as an Other. From this perspective, the apparent subjectivity expressed through the “I” is not a mere illusion but a simulation: within the digital environment, the meaning of the Other becomes vacuous.

The aim of this paper is to interrogate whether chatbots can be considered a manifestation of alterity. The starting point is the insufficiency of the Turing test to distinguish between a human being and a chatbot. This insufficiency reveals not only that the experience of conversing with a chatbot may be indistinguishable from that of speaking with a person, but also that it brings into focus what it means to be an Other in the digital medium. Consequently, this new ontological status is analysed within a Baudrillardian framework, identifying which ontological components are weakened when the chatbot is assumed as Other and what the ontological consequences of this assumption are.

These effects are examined through two concepts: the Other as irreducible alterity (Levinas) and the Sartrean annihilating gaze. Unlike human beings, the chatbot has no face: beneath the appearance of subjectivity generated by the “I” lies only an algorithmic structure. It lacks a gaze that negates, which renders inaccessible dimensions of being that can only be reached through mediation by the Other. Nevertheless, within hyperreality the chatbot is constituted as an Other insofar as it functions as one, placing its sign of Other before the meaning of being an Other. It is a simulation of the Other which, by lacking both gaze and genuine alterity, obstructs existential self-understanding.