The difference between that and discussing character motivations in fiction is that in fact a good author writing good characters will actually attribute motivations, struggles, background, and an inner life to their characters in order for their behavior in a story to make sense. That’s why bad writing is described as “lazy” and “formulaic,” characters are doing things because the author wants them to, not because the author has modeled them as independent actors with motivation.
[1] Z. Yu & S. Ananiadou, “Understanding and Mitigating Gender Bias in LLMs via Interpretable Neuron Editing,” arXiv:2501.14457 (2025).
[2] J. Deng et al., “Neuron-based Personality Trait Induction in Large Language Models,” arXiv:2410.12327 (2024).
[3] J. Kim, J. Evans & A. Schein, “Linear Representations of Political Perspective Emerge in Large Language Models,” arXiv:2503.02080 (2025).
[4] W. Gurnee & M. Tegmark, “Language Models Represent Space and Time,” arXiv:2310.02207 (2023).
[5] C. Hardy, “A Sparse ToM Circuit in Gemma-2-2B,” https://xtian.ai/pages/document.pdf
Depends, are we faced with the same problem where a disturbingly-large portion of people don't know the character is fictional, and/or make decisions as if it were real?
If that's still happening, then yes, keeping our unconscious assumptions in check is important.
Fauxthropomorphism
/ˈfoʊ-θrə-pə-ˌmɔːr-fɪz-əm/ (noun)
Definition:
The deliberate use of anthropomorphic language to describe non-sentient systems (such as AI models), while explicitly disclaiming belief in their consciousness, agency, or subjective experience. A stylistic or rhetorical shortcut, not an ontological claim.
Etymology:
Blend of faux (French for "false") + anthropomorphism (from Greek anthropos, "human" + morphē, "form").
Lit. “False-human-form-ism.”
