ABSTRACT
In opposition to much of the current scholarly and popular publications on the subject, this chapter argues that what large language models (LLM)—like OpenAI's GPT series of algorithm and Google's LaMDA and Bard—signify is not the end of writing but the terminal limits of a particular conceptualization of writing that has been called logocentrism. Toward this end, the chapter will (1) review three fundamental elements of logocentric metaphysics and the long shadow that this way of thinking has cast over the conceptualization and critique of LLMs and generative AI; (2) trace the contours of a deconstruction of this standard operating procedure that interrupts influential and often-unquestioned assumptions about the concept of the author, the meaning of truth, and the meaning of what we mean by the word “meaning”; and (3) formulate the terms and conditions of an alternative way to think and write about LLMs and generative AI that escape the conceptual grasp of logocentrism and its hegemony.
