DeepMind's Andrew Lampinen defends anthropomorphic metaphors for describing AI
AndrewLampinen · x · 2026-10-10
Researcher Andrew Lampinen published a blog post, In defense of metaphor, arguing that anthropomorphic language for AI is useful.
- Drawing on Lakoff & Johnson's Metaphors We Live By, he frames metaphor as a core tool of human cognition that lets us generalize and predict via familiar concrete concepts.
- Describing LMs as having goals or beliefs clearly meets the bar for useful metaphor; imperfection doesn't require discarding them, just using them with acknowledged limits.
- He contends that contorting our language to avoid metaphors actually harms understanding, and proposes a middle way for clearer communication about AI.
Related event: DeepMind researcher defends anthropomorphic metaphors for AI(2 posts)→
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