A Summer with AI

This summer, French Press will publish a series of original contributions on artificial intelligence, asking contemporary writers a very simple question: is there an ethical and legitimate use of artificial intelligence in literary creation?

Starting from the growing omnipresence of artificial intelligence, which raises legitimate concerns about its negative impact on the environment and on jobs even as it keeps promising innovations meant to offset the destructive effects it causes, we will ask whether the space of literary creation could be made a sanctuary by explicitly, if not contractually, excluding AI.

Should writers forbid themselves the use of artificial intelligence, which would break the implicit contract that binds them to their readers: that of one subjectivity speaking directly to another, without the mediation of a technology that recycles other people’s work and calculates the probabilities of a word’s occurrence?

Should there be a “Guaranteed AI-free” label spelling out this moral contract on book covers? Or is there an acceptable use of AI which, without replacing the author, plays the role of editorial assistant, proofreader, or literary adviser?

Throughout the summer, writers and philosophers will be invited to reflect on these questions in short texts or brief videos published exclusively on French Press.

We are not the only ones asking these questions, but we have chosen to think them through with the people who carry contemporary literary creation.