Artificial intelligence and one-to-no-one communication

This article argues that emerging forms of interaction between humans and AI should be understood as ‘one-to-no-one communication’: communicative experiences in which the existence of the other, its capacity to participate as an interlocutor, or its way of receiving and interpreting messages cannot be securely established. Framing contemporary discussions on AI within a longer history of efforts to communicate with animals, spirits, extraterrestrials, and other uncertain interlocutors, the notion of one-to-no-one communication offers a framework to understand what happens when communication appears to succeed even though the identity, experience, and understanding of the other remain beyond our reach. The article poses the foundation for a theory of one-to-no-one communication by considering the problem of communicating with an alien other, the role of meaning-making in communication, and the fact that communication is always an act of imagination.