The question of AI authorship: literary-theoretical perspectives

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the conceptualization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a literary author. Although it has received consideration in other disciplines, the conceptual issues remain comparatively underexplored in literary studies. In an era that challenges the hegemony of the human, how should we posit AI as author? What possibilities, or impossibilities, could be offered by way of literary approaches to generative AI? Our exploration engages with an array of theoretical frameworks on authorship, text and textuality, readership, and interpretation. We revisit critical perspectives from the first and second halves of the twentieth century as well as more contemporary turns in literary theory to reflect on computer-generated text and ensuing interpretive methods. In doing so, we place the rethinking of authorship within a history of thought from which AI scholarship can still learn.