Does Writing Have a Future?

Abstract

This essay argues that large language models (LLMs), like OpenAI’s GPT series of algorithm and Google’s LaMDA and Bard, signify not the end of writing but the terminal limits of a particular conceptualization of writing that has been called logocentrism. Toward this end, the analysis will 1) review three fundamental elements of logocentric metaphysics and the long shadow that this way of thinking has cast over the conceptualization and critique of LLMs and generative AI; 2) release a deconstruction of this standard operating procedure that interrupts influential and often-unquestioned assumptions about authorship, truth, and semiology; and 3) formulate the terms and conditions of an alternative way to think and write about LLMs and generative AI that escape the conceptual grasp of logocentrism and its hegemony.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models, Literature, Media Studies, Philosophy of Technology, Writing