  Is it sensical to ascribe psychological predicates to AI systems like
chatbots based on large language models (LLMs)? People have intuitively started
ascribing emotions or consciousness to social AI ('affective artificial
agents'), with consequences that range from love to suicide. The philosophical
question of whether such ascriptions are warranted is thus very relevant. This
paper advances the argument that LLMs instantiate language users in Ludwig
Wittgenstein's sense but that ascribing psychological predicates to these
systems remains a functionalist temptation. Social AIs are not full-blown
language users, but rather more like Italo Calvino's literature machines. The
ideas of LLMs as Wittgensteinian language users and Calvino's
literature-producing writing machine are combined. This sheds light on the
misguided functionalist temptation inherent in moving from equating the two to
the ascription of psychological predicates to social AI. Finally, the framework
of mortal computation is used to show that social AIs lack the basic
autopoiesis needed for narrative fa\c{c}ons de parler and their role in the
sensemaking of human (inter)action. Such psychological predicate ascriptions
could make sense: the transition 'from quantity to quality' can take place, but
its route lies somewhere between life and death, not between affective
artifacts and emotion approximation by literature machines.
