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RE: AIs Can't Handle the Truth! The Complexity of Argumentation for Machines
There are a lot of interesting points in your article. "Shining a light" on truth through argument is a nice metaphor, but I wonder if we can ever be sure the shining argument is the true one. After thousands of years of philosophical inquiry, no one has found definitive truth or a reliable standard for evaluating truth (outside of things that are true by definition like mathematical concepts). Abstract that one more layer to humans teaching AI true things and things get even more muddled.
You say knowing true from false gives a better map for the territory. I would argue that one can know the map(belief), but not the territory(truth).
Is it true that the letter A is the letter A?
Is it true that the letter A is the letter B?
Is it true that the number 2 is the number 2?
Is it true that the number 2 is the letter A?
Is it true that the word true is the word true?
Is it true that the word true is the word false?
It is true that some of those statements are tautologies :P Those would be the "true by definition" items I was referring to (some are false by definition I suppose). Letters, numbers, and words as described above have no intrinsic meaning. They are pointers that we agree have the same meaning so that conversation is possible.
This gets really interesting if you approach these questions as a programmer. If you consider 'A' as a variable, you can set it equal to 'B', in which case the letter A is the letter B.