AI, Textuality and the Humanities

In view of current large language model (LLM) capacities for producing texts, this book offers a careful reconsideration of fundamental concepts in the study of literature and, more broadly, the humanities: especially, of textuality, literariness, and authorship. The focus here is on original ordinary-language text production by LLMs in response to prompts, to which an unusual literary perspective is extended. Much of the argument is addressed to the concept of ‘text,’ or is about reconsidering textuality. A distinction is made between the conventionally received idea and the technological idea of ‘text,’ principally in terms of the relation between texts and the surfaces they appear upon. Literariness is conceptualized in terms of set-theoretical and boundary approaches, relevant annotated data collection, interlingual machine translation, and notions of value. Authorship in this context is viewed with LLM functionalities in view, as opening opportunities for adding depth to and insight into what readers, writers, and scholars do. Topics and features: · Answers urgent questions about the ramifications of current AI models for literary studies and other humanities disciplines · Offers original insights into fundamental theories and habitual practices that bear upon working with texts · Explores a dataset of LLM-produced texts of great contemporary significance · Gives a sufficient and jargon-free account of relevant technological processes, with the aid of an AI engineer · Conveys a powerful sense of the socio-technological juncture society is at now This wide-ranging study of contemporary textual concepts and practices will interest a range of readers, such as advanced students and researchers in humanities disciplines. It also will be of value to: professionals who deal with the texts; scientists and engineers concerned with human-machine interaction and with developing text-centered apps; and informed general readers curious about the impact of AI on culture and society. Suman Gupta is Professor of Literature and Cultural History at The Open University, UK.