Join CENES and visiting speaker Dr. Stefan Börnchen, Research Scientist, University of Luxembourg, for a discussion on the Cultural Prehistory of Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT.
Since Open AI made ChatGPT publicly available in late 2022, the ability of Artificial Intelligence to have meaningful conversations—therapeutic conversations included—or to deliver scripts, academic essays, and pop songs on demand (not to mention deepfakes) has been understood as an attack on human identity. Machines now have creative abilities that humans thought were reserved for themselves. Thus, in addition to the three great insults to humankind, there is a fourth: if human beings are no longer the center of the universe since Copernicus, no longer in God’s image since Darwin, and no longer the masters of their instincts since Freud, today conversational agents are also contesting that talent which, since Aristotle’s canonical definition of human beings (Politics 1253 a), was undisputedly regarded as their unique selling point: language, or at least a linguistic performance that simulates language. The scenario of artificial speech, fictionalized again and again since the automaton enthusiasm of the 18th century, has become reality.
If ChatGPT speaks, then writing speaks itself. For on the one hand, conversational agents draw on archival data put down in writing, on the other hand, the mathematical calculus of the conversational agents’ algorithms presupposes the space of writing. Seen in this light, the linguistic phonē of ChatGPT is an epiphenomenon of the graphē of data and calculi in a similar sense to how Derrida in his Grammatology called “writing itself the origin of language.” This uncannily inverts the Pauline topos of the “letter that kills” and the “spirit” inherent in the voice that “makes alive” (2 Cor 3:6). In other words, ChatGPT gives credence to the reason why Plato’s Pharaoh Thamus rejected the writing offered to him by the god Theut (Phaidros 274c-275b).
Dr. Stefan Börnchen, Research Scientist for Humanities and Digitalization at the University of Luxembourg. Monographs: Kryptenhall. Allegorien von Schrift, Stimme und Musik in Thomas Manns “Doktor Faustus” (2006); Poetik der Linie. Wilhelm Busch, Max und Moritz und die Tradition (2015); “Alles ist eins.” Romantische Metaphorologie des Mediums (2021), Stalingrad an der Elbe. Kälte, Krieg und Unbehaustheit in Dörte Hansens Roman Altes Land (2022).
How to Attend:
Join us in Buchanan Tower in room 997, or attend virtually
Discussion and Moderation:
Dr. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, UBC
Agenda:
12:15: Coffee, refreshments
12:30: Welcome and introduction by event organizer, Gaby Pailer (UBC)
12:35: Guest Lecture by Stefan Börnchen (University of Luxembourg)
13:00 – 13:15: Discussion with Geoffrey Winthrop-Young (UBC)
13:15 – 13:45: Open Floor Discussion
