Abstract:
In 1977 Foucault provocatively asked us the question what is an Author” in which he quotes Beckett in saying “What matter who’s speaking, someone said, what matter who’s speaking?”. A decade earlier Barthes in his 1967 essay La mort de l'auteur called for a liberation from the constraints imposed by authorial biography and intention in the act of interpretation and literary criticism. In 1996 the Sokal affair contributed a new layer to the question of identity, authorship, meaning, and trustworthiness in scholarship and review.
What could be argued as critical and contrarian conceits are now manifest in the era of generative AI where “who is speaking” and “what is said” can both be manifest “illusions”. These circumstances pose deep and non-trivial questions in the context of education and schooling. No longer mere thought experiments or acts of philosophical investigation these are acts in the world that are having profound effects. Regimes of truth and discursive practices are being developed in viva as new mechanisms of surveillance and corrections are developed. An inability to determine authenticity and ownership is seeing a rising call for greater mechanisms of surveillance.
In assessment where the attribution of acts of performativity to an individual are seen as critical, the question posed by generative writing, either entirely or in support of, intellectual work becomes a central concern. The current “moral work” being undertaken within Schooling systems in response to the ‘threat” of generative AI needs not only an instrumental response but in the view argued here also requires a deep consideration of how theoretical lens can be deployed.
Within Schooling systems, the theoretical and critical response to this situation is lagging. Policy and practice is proving to be at best reactive, running ahead of even data or clear consensus within the field as metaphors on Pandora’s box being opened and jinn’s not being able to be put back in bottles abound.
Here we look to the questions of authorship, originality, performativity and epistemic thresholds to propose possible lines of theoretical construing that would benefit the current debate and policy on generative AI. Attention is paid specifically to the tertiary sector as a case study. Here epistemic paradigms have been long in the balance. We consider if generative AI offers an extension of the concerns around plagiarism or is a new and distinct domain of action. In either regard the research challenge is present and clear.
What could be argued as critical and contrarian conceits are now manifest in the era of generative AI where “who is speaking” and “what is said” can both be manifest “illusions”. These circumstances pose deep and non-trivial questions in the context of education and schooling. No longer mere thought experiments or acts of philosophical investigation these are acts in the world that are having profound effects. Regimes of truth and discursive practices are being developed in viva as new mechanisms of surveillance and corrections are developed. An inability to determine authenticity and ownership is seeing a rising call for greater mechanisms of surveillance.
In assessment where the attribution of acts of performativity to an individual are seen as critical, the question posed by generative writing, either entirely or in support of, intellectual work becomes a central concern. The current “moral work” being undertaken within Schooling systems in response to the ‘threat” of generative AI needs not only an instrumental response but in the view argued here also requires a deep consideration of how theoretical lens can be deployed.
Within Schooling systems, the theoretical and critical response to this situation is lagging. Policy and practice is proving to be at best reactive, running ahead of even data or clear consensus within the field as metaphors on Pandora’s box being opened and jinn’s not being able to be put back in bottles abound.
Here we look to the questions of authorship, originality, performativity and epistemic thresholds to propose possible lines of theoretical construing that would benefit the current debate and policy on generative AI. Attention is paid specifically to the tertiary sector as a case study. Here epistemic paradigms have been long in the balance. We consider if generative AI offers an extension of the concerns around plagiarism or is a new and distinct domain of action. In either regard the research challenge is present and clear.