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"Cultural theory was right about the death of the author. It was just a few decades early" (article reflecting on the connection between LLMs, structuralism, and 20th-century cultural theory) (crookedtimber.org)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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That LLMs exist; that they are capable of forming coherent sentences in response to prompts; that they are in some genuine sense creative without intentionality, suggests that there is something importantly right about the arguments of structuralist linguistics. Language demonstrably can exist as a system independent of the humans who employ it, and exist generatively, so that it is capable of forming new combinations. [...] much of what we commonly attribute to individual cognition is in fact carried out through the systems of signs that structure our social lives.

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[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub

[Lem] writes that the novel goes beyond casual political satire: it puts forth the "totalization of the notion of intentionality". Explaining the concept, he writes that everything which humans perceive may be interpreted by them as a message, and that a number of "-isms" are based on interpreting the whole Universe as a message to its inhabitants. This interpretation may be exploited for political purposes and then run amok beyond their intentions.

Unfortunately I’m unable to find an English translation of his full commentary.

Edit to add: I found a translation.

ELIZA had already shown us that just because a sentence is grammatically and semantically intelligible doesn’t necessarily mean there was any intentionality behind it, but people often assume so. Until recently, texts always had been written by humans, so it’s understandable that they might assume.

this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, unlike the natural intelligence displayed by humans and animals, which involves consciousness and emotionality. The distinction between the former and the latter categories is often revealed by the acronym chosen.

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