@mkirschenbaum
Critical tech and literary/cultural AI. Also cats, letterpress printing, and tabletop gaming. Professor of English at UVA (Commonwealth chair upon approval). Speaking for myself as a private citizen here. Being rude will get you blocked.
#BrainrotPropaganda: You take the patriotic imagery of the past and strip it of all content. There's no narrative left, no promise of meaning, only vibes. The total destruction of meaning is the content, no matter if it's AI generated or manually stitched together from YouTube clips
#MemeFascism
Behold the wisdom and bravery of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
www.mediaite.com/media/tv/rep...
If that bingo card gets updated any more times I’m gonna wear a hole right through
Like pulling teeth, I tell ya
CNN headline: “Iran war spreads as European nations drawn further in”
I have a very vivid memory of a family member telling me they were voting for Trump in 2024 because they were afraid Biden was looking to start World War III
I know why Kristi Noem SHOULD be fired, but why is she being fired
Dining out with a reservation is now an excruciation of reminders and confirmations before the meal, and incessant nagging for “feedback” afterwards.
Weird how this keeps happening! www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...
To be sure. But we can’t just wave away the structural truth of “even if only a small percentage.” The power imbalance is hugely consequential!
Yesterday, I received a project assessment/problem fix plan that was created with AI. It's a mash-up of generic text and excerpts from tech blogs, some of which are, amazingly, applicable.
It's exactly the sort of commodity writing that MK is taking about.
Here works best for me, thank you
But to the extent we are all creatures of neoliberal institutions, yada yada, it’s the same argument—
We live in the world of what Michel de Certeau called the scriptural economy. Writing and capital are inextricably linked. That has been my position since pretty much day one. It is not intended as a salutary diagnosis.
👆. In the abstract for something I just wrote, I appended: “This is not intended as a salutary diagnosis.”
Some of the other replies I’ve received are illuminating. The assumption/expectation in their workplace is that people will just use a model.
We live in the world of what Michel de Certeau called the scriptural economy. Writing and capital are inextricably linked. This has been my position since pretty much day one.
I fear I’m already lost.
And no, of course not every academic believes this. But every time the category error gets made, it’s an academic who does it.
I was honored to be asked!
I am genuinely looking forward to our conversation!
You should have kept that chapter in the book. :-)
For me, it’s not “we” with the agency here, it’s capital. I just wrote a longish piece on this for Social Research I’d love to send you before it’s out, if I may.
Exactly. I’m not saying this is a salutary state of affairs. I am saying it’s the way of the world.
Right. I call it transactional writing, following Deborah Brandt. What gets missed over and over in these discussions is that it’s by far (volumetrically) the most common form of writing in the world.
I hereby declare Kirschenbaum’s law:
Thinking that every discussion of writing is a discussion of student writing is a category error only academics make.
I am a big John Warner fan, and his recent book is the first one I recommend to colleagues. But I am not talking about student writing or teaching writing here. Thinking that every discussion of writing is a discussion of student writing is a category error only academics make.
💅
It’s likely because it’s late and it’s been a long day, but I apologize, I’m just not following that.
Congratulations: your experience of writing is *qualitatively different* from the vast majority of what gets written, which is so dreary and workaday that the courts have repeatedly ruled the authors of such work are not authors but employees, nor can they claim copyright or profit from said work.
When you sit down to write an essay or a long overdue email to a friend or even a snappy post for this website, you relish the feeling of the words at the tips of your fingers, tumbling into place like the tumblers in a safe. We say “it clicks”for a reason, right? It’s unique and it’s you, right? —>
Most people don’t win prizes for their writing, nor do they aspire to such. That writing is or should be that is itself a historically and culturally conditioned view of what writing is.