TY - JOUR
T1 - The Hermeneutics of Computer-Generated Texts
AU - Henrickson, Leah
AU - Meroño-Peñuela, Albert
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.
PY - 2022/3/1
Y1 - 2022/3/1
N2 - As cultural circumstances become increasingly digital, the importance of theoretical frameworks guiding calculated consider-ations of authorial intention and reader response is being reaffirmed. The framework proposed in this article is that of hermeneutics: the study of understanding, of processes of meaning-making. Although explicit application of hermeneutics has fallen out of fashion, the field is especially valuable for critically approaching digital texts. This article thus serves as a reintroduction to hermeneutics, particularly for digital textual study. It offers an overview of historical hermeneutical views, and then applies a hermeneutics perspective to a new kind of text made possible by digital technologies: computer-generated prose. Through analysis and repurposing of OpenAI’s GPT-2 software, this paper argues that the reintegration of hermeneutics in digital textual studies may contribute to more comprehensive understandings of both human and computer intention, especially in instances of com-puter-generated texts. Digital technologies are changing conventional understandings of authorship and reader responsibility; hermeneutics helps us understand what these changes are, how they have come to be, and why they matter.
AB - As cultural circumstances become increasingly digital, the importance of theoretical frameworks guiding calculated consider-ations of authorial intention and reader response is being reaffirmed. The framework proposed in this article is that of hermeneutics: the study of understanding, of processes of meaning-making. Although explicit application of hermeneutics has fallen out of fashion, the field is especially valuable for critically approaching digital texts. This article thus serves as a reintroduction to hermeneutics, particularly for digital textual study. It offers an overview of historical hermeneutical views, and then applies a hermeneutics perspective to a new kind of text made possible by digital technologies: computer-generated prose. Through analysis and repurposing of OpenAI’s GPT-2 software, this paper argues that the reintegration of hermeneutics in digital textual studies may contribute to more comprehensive understandings of both human and computer intention, especially in instances of com-puter-generated texts. Digital technologies are changing conventional understandings of authorship and reader responsibility; hermeneutics helps us understand what these changes are, how they have come to be, and why they matter.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132673260&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1353/con.2022.0008
DO - 10.1353/con.2022.0008
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85132673260
SN - 1063-1801
VL - 30
SP - 115
EP - 139
JO - CONFIGURATIONS
JF - CONFIGURATIONS
IS - 2
ER -