Participants: Miha Mazzini, Naomi S. Baron
Moderator: Miha Kovač
Summary:
The role of AI in creative processes and the importance of books in the digital era will also be explored in a discussion by researcher Naomi S. Baron and writer Miha Mazzini.
Description:
There are at least three crucial differences between texts written by humans and AI. First, because AI creates texts based on statistical connections between words, there are no human emotions, motivations, or thoughts behind such texts. Second, since AI has no human understanding of truth and lies, it sometimes lies even more convincingly than humans. Finally, texts based on statistical occurrences of words cannot produce textual innovations similar to those of the human mind.
What does all this mean for writers? What do we lose when we no longer assume that the ability to express our thoughts and feelings in writing is crucial to the human condition? And what do we gain by using AI to help us write? We also need to think about how AI will affect us as readers. What do we lose when we rely on AI-generated book summaries and interpretations instead of reading the books themselves? How do digital screen technologies combined with artificial intelligence change our ability to read and be changed by poetry and all kinds of long, narrative texts? And what role does the printed book play in all of this?
Maja Lunde is an author and screenwriter, living in Oslo with her husband and three children. She is the most successful Norwegian author of her generation. Her books are translated into 40 languages and has sold 5 million copies.
Naomi S. Baron is Professor Emerita of Linguistics at American University in Washington, DC. Her books include How We Read Now (2021) and Who Wrote This? How AI and the Lure of Efficiency Threaten Human Writing (2023).
Miha Kovač is professor at the Department of Library and Information Science and Book Studies at the University of Ljubljana. In his publishing career, he worked as editorial director in the two largest Slovene publishing houses. His last book Is this a Book?, co-authored with Angus Phillips, was published by Cambridge University Press this July. He is also the curator of Slovenia Guest of Honour program at Frankfurt Book Fair in 2023.