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The following text has been machine translated from the German with no human editing.
The conference will take place from 19 to 21 November at the Innovation Center of Saarland University (Building A2 1, Room 3.05). It will open with the question of the extent to which AI-generated texts can be interpreted hermeneutically: author and sociologist Juan S. Guse will talk about his writing with artificial intelligence, read excerpts from his work and discuss this new way of writing with Berlin-based comparative literature scholar and cultural scientist Patricia A. Gwozdz. The interested public is welcome to attend this and all other programme items.
In recent years, numerous AI-generated texts have appeared on the book market from well-known literary publishers. How can literary scholars deal with such texts? To what extent can they be interpreted using established methods in the humanities? And conversely, can artificial intelligence be used to interpret literature? ‘These two major sets of questions are the focus of our conference,’ says Joachim Harst, who currently holds the Chair of General and Comparative Literature Studies at Saarland University. He is organising the conference, which is rooted in literary and cultural studies, entitled ‘Artificial Hermeneutics: Meaning, Contingency, Digitality’ together with Markus Alexander Lenz, who is acting professor of Romance and General Literature and Cultural Studies.
So where are the boundaries between conventional literary interpretation (hermeneutics) and artificial intelligence? ‘One critical position is that AI itself cannot deliver interpretative results because its technology is not based on sign interpretation but on statistics,’ explains Harst. In contrast, a mediating position takes the view that it is still humans who establish the interpretative contexts by reading the output of AI into their interpretation. ‘The conference aims to clarify the boundaries between the two positions and explore possibilities for combining hermeneutic literary interpretation and artificial intelligence.’
The opening evening (19 November, from 5 p.m.) will be devoted to the second controversial question: How should artificially generated texts that are sold as literature be evaluated? Author and sociologist Juan S. Guse will report on a literary experiment he conducted in 2023 together with writer and cultural scientist Jenifer Becker and ChatGPT for the Neue Rundschau. The result, the short story ‘Alpha Centauri in Ewigkeit’ (Alpha Centauri in Eternity), demonstrates the possibilities and limitations of creative writing with generative AI. In addition to reading excerpts from the text, the author will discuss this new type of literature with cultural scientist Patricia A. Gwozdz and the audience.
Two keynote speeches will further highlight the conference programme.
The first lecture will be given by Jörg Noller before the aforementioned opening event on Wednesday, 19 November, at 5 p.m. The Munich-based philosopher has been exploring the philosophy of digitality and AI in the spirit of Enlightenment thinking for many years. His publications discuss, for example, how a responsible approach to digital media and AI can be implemented.
Another keynote speech will follow on the second day of the conference, 20 November, at 6 p.m. The renowned Berlin media philosopher Sybille Krämer will ask the uncomfortable question of the role of the humanities in a new culture of digitality. Her latest book, published by Suhrkamp Verlag, ‘Der Stachel des Digitalen. Geisteswissenschaften und Digital Humanities’ (The Sting of the Digital: Humanities and Digital Humanities), succinctly formulates the challenges posed by digitality to the core competencies of humanities interpretation and, at the same time, reveals their unacknowledged proximity to digital text practices.
Link to the conference programme: https://www.uni-saarland.de/lehrstuhl/solte-gresser/forschung/laufende-projekte/tagung-artifizielle-hermeneutik.html
Veranstaltungsort: Universität des Saarlandes, Campus A2 1 (Raum 3.05), 66123 Saarbrücken
Lageplan
Fragen beantworten:
Dr. habil. Joachim Harst
Vertretungsprofessur Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft
Universität des Saarlandes
Campus A2 2, Raum 0.10 | 66123 Saarbrücken
Tel.: 0681 302-3302
https://www.uni-saarland.de/lehrstuhl/solte-gresser/lehrstuhl/vertretungsprofessur.html
PD Dr. Markus Alexander Lenz
Vertretungsprofessur für Romanische und Allgemeine Literatur- und Kulturwissenshaft
Universität des Saarlandes
Campus A5 3, Raum 0.03 | 66123 Saarbrücken
Tel.: +49 681 302-3321
https://www.uni-saarland.de/lehrstuhl/messling/lehrstuhl/priv-doz-dr-markus-a-lenz.html