Thank you for the essay! I'm going into computer science research, so you can imagine how alone I feel on this issue. I've been re-reading Barthes with increasing frequency as my work comes closer to intersecting with LLMs and generative AI (not so much an optional direction of inquiry nowadays as an inevitability). The death of the author, which I imagine OpenAI executives would delight in, although much of his later writing modifies that argument by suggesting that the author is still alive. If not as an extratextual authority then as a body of information that we can parse and interpret as we do a piece.
But also his conception of the "Text" as a field of meaning that the reader creates in their interactions as much as they consume. Reading and writing were not always discrete activities. Our ability to traverse a text, to play with it, and ultimately to procure something of value from it—all tied to our ability to write. It's precisely where they intersect, the describing relationships to other texts and synthesizing context into concrete meaning, that AI intervenes. Offloading all of our intellectual labor onto AI except at the highest level is tantamount to refusing to engage with the text in any capacity, reading or writing. This process debilitates all text and all writers and all readers. I simultaneously do and do not hope that that becomes more obvious with time.
I often think about the Ursula K Le Guin line from a story where they create instantaneous space/time travel and the guys mother asks “where is the dancing? where is the way?”
I agree!!! she finds a way of making her critique of the world that we find ourselves in so nuanced. No one can argue that her critique is not steeped in leftism, but what feels so refreshing-other than her genuinely insightful prose-is that you get the sense that she understands the allure. In this essay that looks like her having a genuine understanding of why ai is attractive to people as a tool in this modern world. But in other essays that has looked like her understanding the impulse for women to "align themselves with power", or how we feel the need to tell ourselves stories to fit our incomprehensible lives into plot lines or narrative arcs. obviously this is not the only thing that makes her writing shine but its one aspect that stands out to me.
Thank you for the essay! I'm going into computer science research, so you can imagine how alone I feel on this issue. I've been re-reading Barthes with increasing frequency as my work comes closer to intersecting with LLMs and generative AI (not so much an optional direction of inquiry nowadays as an inevitability). The death of the author, which I imagine OpenAI executives would delight in, although much of his later writing modifies that argument by suggesting that the author is still alive. If not as an extratextual authority then as a body of information that we can parse and interpret as we do a piece.
But also his conception of the "Text" as a field of meaning that the reader creates in their interactions as much as they consume. Reading and writing were not always discrete activities. Our ability to traverse a text, to play with it, and ultimately to procure something of value from it—all tied to our ability to write. It's precisely where they intersect, the describing relationships to other texts and synthesizing context into concrete meaning, that AI intervenes. Offloading all of our intellectual labor onto AI except at the highest level is tantamount to refusing to engage with the text in any capacity, reading or writing. This process debilitates all text and all writers and all readers. I simultaneously do and do not hope that that becomes more obvious with time.
I often think about the Ursula K Le Guin line from a story where they create instantaneous space/time travel and the guys mother asks “where is the dancing? where is the way?”
in a world of "i tried this writer's routine for a day" content and inescapable AI bombardment, this felt like a satisfying exhale and mind reset.
I agree!!! she finds a way of making her critique of the world that we find ourselves in so nuanced. No one can argue that her critique is not steeped in leftism, but what feels so refreshing-other than her genuinely insightful prose-is that you get the sense that she understands the allure. In this essay that looks like her having a genuine understanding of why ai is attractive to people as a tool in this modern world. But in other essays that has looked like her understanding the impulse for women to "align themselves with power", or how we feel the need to tell ourselves stories to fit our incomprehensible lives into plot lines or narrative arcs. obviously this is not the only thing that makes her writing shine but its one aspect that stands out to me.
Based