The transformer architecture, introduced by Vaswani et al. (2017), is at the heart of the remarkable recent progress in the development of language models, including famous chatbots such as Chat-gpt and Bard. In this paper, I argue that we an extract from the way the transformer architecture works a picture of the relationship between context and meaning. I call this the transformer picture, and I argue that it is a novel with regard to two related philosophical debates: the contextualism debate regarding the extent of context-sensitivity across natural language, and the polysemy debate regarding how polysemy should be captured within an account of word meaning. Although much of the paper merely tries to position the transformer picture with respect to these two debates, I will also begin to make the case for the transformer picture.

We introduce generative interpretation, a new approach to estimating contractual meaning using large language models. As AI triumphalism is the order of the day, we proceed by way of grounded case studies, each illustrating the capabilities of these novel tools in distinct ways. Taking well-known contracts opinions, and sourcing the actual agreements that they adjudicated, we show that AI models can help factfinders ascertain ordinary meaning in context, quantify ambiguity, and fill gaps in parties' agreements. We also illustrate how models can calculate the probative value of individual pieces of extrinsic evidence. After offering best practices for the use of these models given their limitations, we consider their implications for judicial practice and contract theory. Using LLMs permits courts to estimate what the parties intended cheaply and accurately, and as such generative interpretation unsettles the current interpretative stalemate. Their use responds to efficiency-minded textualists and justice-oriented contextualists, who argue about whether parties will prefer cost and certainty or accuracy and fairness. Parties--and courts--would prefer a middle path, in which adjudicators strive to predict what the contract really meant, admitting just enough context to approximate reality while avoiding unguided and biased assimilation of evidence. As generative interpretation offers this possibility, we argue it can become the new workhorse of contractual interpretation.