We discuss philosophical work on speech acts with two objectives. First, we consider what the computer language use of speech acts can learn from the extensive work by philosophers. Second, considering speech acts as we want computers to do them sheds light on the philosohical problems. The two aspects of the philosohical treatments are so interrelated that we discuss them together. Here are some remarks.
Philosophers treat speech acts as natural phenomena to be studied.
However, they propose not to treat them from the point of view of anthropology or linguistics. Instead they study their essential characteristics in terms of what they accomplish. This makes their work more relevant to computer science and artificial intelligence than linguistic or anthropological work would be. My view of speech acts is that they are necessary in the common sense informatic situation in which people interact with each other to achieve their goals. The most important features of this informatic situation are independent of the fact that we are humans.