ChatGPT, a large language model (LLM) by OpenAI, is expected to have a transformative impact on many aspects of society. There is much discussion in the media and a rapidly growing academic debate about its benefits and ethical risks. This article explores the profound influence of Socratic dialogue on Western and non-Western thought, emphasizing its role in the pursuit of truth through active thinking and dialectics. Unlike Socratic dialogue, ChatGPT generates plausible-sounding answers based on pre-trained data, lacking the pursuit of objective truth, personal experience, intuition, and empathy. The LLM’s responses are limited by its training dataset and algorithms, which can perpetuate biases or misinformation. While a true dialogue is a creative, philosophical exchange filled with ontological, ethical, and existential meanings, interactions with ChatGPT are characterized as interactive data processing. But is this really true? Perhaps we are underestimating the evolutionary growth potential of large language models? These questions have important implications for theoretical debates in cognitive science, changing our understanding of what cognition means in artificial and natural intelligence. This special issue examines ChatGPT as a subject of philosophical analysis from a position of cautious optimism and rather harsh criticism.  It includes six articles covering a wide range of topics. The first group of researchers emphasizes that machine understanding and communication matches human practice. Others argue that AI cannot reach human levels of intelligence because it lacks conceptual thinking and the ability to create. Such contradictory interpretations only confirm the complexity and ambiguity of the phenomenon.