authorship without agency?: responding to computer-generated texts
TRANSCRIPT
Authorship Without Agency?
Responding toComputer-Generated Texts
Leah HenricksonLoughborough University
Who I Am• BA: University of Toronto
‒ Book & Media Studies• Directed Research Project:
Qui bene presunt: A Research Catalogue
• MA: Institute of English Studies,School of Advanced Study, University of London‒ History of the Book• Dissertation:
Feedforward: An Analysis of Inventory Books' Visualities Using Scholarship aboutMedieval Manuscripts
Computers are writing books.Why should we care?
Racter [William Chamberlain and Tom Etter], The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed (1984)
Nora Reed, www.twitter.com/christianmom18 (now suspended)
Arria NLG (Market Cap: 16.70M USD)
Darius Kazemi, Teens Wander Around a House [Version 1] (2013)
Algorithmic authorship breaks the hermeneutic code.
How does algorithmic authorship challenge traditional understandings of authorship?
What are the social and literaryimplications of these
challenges?
Theory and Methodology
• Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, Elizabeth Eisenstein‒ Media scholars writing about periods of transition
• D. F. McKenzie, Robert Darnton, Thomas Adamsand Nicolas Barker‒ Book historians, sociologists of texts
• Analysis of primary and secondary material• Patent/stock analysis• Interviews• Empirical reader-response study
What’s Been Done• Definitions of key terms
‒ Program, algorithm, bot‒ Authorship, readership (historical)
• Historical overview: The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed• Recognition of key discussion points
‒ Creativity, processes of creation‒ Individual vs. collective reading experiences
• Interdisciplinary conversation/collaboration‒ Computer Science‒ Centre for Information Management‒ Social Sciences
What Needs Doing
• Reduction of scope• Interviews with computer-generated text
producers/programmers‒ Ethical clearance pending
• Development and execution of reader-response study
• Continued collaboration
Computers are writing books.Why should we care?
