Literature after the Technological Singularity
Quoi:
Lightning Talk
Partie de:
Quand:
1:30 PM, vendredi 17 août 2018
(8 minutes)
Où:
Pavillon J.-A. DeSève (DS) UQAM -
DS-R510
Discussion:
0
I consider an expanded version of the technological singularity, that
moment at which humanity will be transformed in an unrecognizable way –
the biggest gap in human history. As I see it, the singularity may
result either from the superintelligence of bootstrapping AIs or from
superstupidity as we, using technology, cause our own species to go
extinct. What will literature be like after this event? It seems hard
enough to write a poem that will be of interest to the next generation
or to produce an electronic literature work that can be read and
accessed in a practical way after a few decades. My argument, however,
is that only literature deeply engaged with computation will have any
chance to remain relevant after the extinction or radical transformation
of all human life. This includes work done by Christian Bök in
xenopoetics – but because of the compositional process of the core poem
of The Xenotext Project, not because of the proposed genetic encoding of
that text. Small, highly constrained computer systems of the type I
develop may also remain compelling to non-humans if the computational
environments in which they function are preserved or can be
reconstructed. Extraterrestrial or computational intelligences will be
find human literary works accessible through their computational
aspects; how these interact with language and culture could provide an
important trace of our existence.