[thaw13579]

This use of the term "fiction" is mostly popularized by Yuval Noah Harari, and while correct in some sense, I find it tends to favor its meanings of falseness and unreality. Another more widely used term is "social constructs", which seems preferable, at least to me, because it's emphasizes that we are building something together, which has real and practice impacts on people's lives, often through explicit legal agreements, rules, and norms.

I do think the more common usage of the term "fiction" fits these AI uses much better, that is, literature involving imaginary things. It can still evoke real feelings and nudge you towards certain behaviors, but importantly, if you decide to ignore the chatbot, there's no risk of imprisonment by some 3rd party (like if you ignore the social constructs of taxes or national borders).

Perhaps one way to differentiate these is that "singular fictions" impose no obligations to 3rd parties, while "collective fictions" / "social constructs" do?