For many commentators, user-friendly generative AI technologies, such as DALL-E and ChatGPT, herald an onslaught of unreal, informatic simulacra. Media theorist Matthew Kirschenbaum, for example, has predicted a “textpocalypse” in which human-authored texts will be lost in a sea of machine-generated facsimiles. But is the situation really so simple and well-defined, such that we can speak of an inhuman informatic that stands opposite the supposed agency, originality, and critical spirit of human readers and writers? This talk argues for a new formulation of the problem, informed by critical digital humanities, and attentive to how recent AI technologies threaten to consolidate and even elevate an anachronistic humanism. Only by transfiguring this entrenched opposition between technics and the human, and with a renewed commitment to “the technical commons” burgeoning around LLMs, can we achieve a properly humanist (or, for that matter, digital-humanist) philosophy equal to the demands of the present. 

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan is a media theorist, a co-chair of the SCMS Philosophy and Theory special interest group, and an editor for Grey Room. He has taught at universities in New Haven, Paris, London, Evanston, and Gothenburg. Duke University published his book Code: From Information Theory to French Theory in 2024, and his essays on media history appear in journals including Representations and Critical Inquiry. He also works as a curator.

This event is presented by the IHGC's Reading Lab and Digital Humanities Initiative.  Please register by February 17th.  Registrants are invited to remain after the lecture for a reception with heavy appetizers and drinks.