🌷SPRING26🪻

Artificial Humanities, that got this whole project started, is also currently half price with the code SPRIN26 press.umich.edu/Books/A/Arti...

I wish I could write like this.

important artists talking important stuff

Is writing thinking? Our new volume holds 16 essays by professional creative writers reflecting on writing in the time of AI. All books are currently 50% off with the code SPRING 26, making it cost $10. Preorders are delivered on Sep 28. @uofmpress.bsky.social press.umich.edu/Books/F/Firs...

A beautiful graduation speech. I hope the students took heart.

anti-selfie

Beguš compellingly shows why understanding AI today and shaping its future require precisely the kinds of knowledge the humanities have to offer." "Beguš inverts the usual causality: Fiction does not merely reflect AI imaginaries; it actively scripts them."

as a potentially central discipline that will require ongoing negotiation and conceptualization by scholars in the literature, culture, and media, as well as by AI researchers and designers, in dialog with the rapidly expanding field of critical AI studies.

with Beguš’s tools for uncovering mythological infrastructures embedded in systems too often taken as purely technical." "The book stands out as a timely and foundational work, providing intellectual grounding for these questions. It positions “Artificial Humanities”

In the age of papal encyclicals on AI, it's worth reading this book. Here are some reviews: "Artificial Humanities establishes the method; the next chapters remain to be written by readers equipped

This fabulous book, The Hard Question of Art by @metahaven.bsky.social is available for preorder! Coming out in August. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/775582...

A strong book review in Configurations! "Artificial Humanities establishes the method; the next chapters remain to be written by readers equipped with Beguš's tools for uncovering mythological infrastructures embedded in systems too often taken as purely technical." @uofmpress.bsky.social

There are many things meaningful to us humans that whales never see. There are no trees and no ground in their world. But the opposite is also true. There are things in their lives that we cannot even imagine. As you go out in the world, search for those unimaginable things.

A strong book review in Configurations! "Artificial Humanities establishes the method; the next chapters remain to be written by readers equipped with Beguš's tools for uncovering mythological infrastructures embedded in systems too often taken as purely technical." @uofmpress.bsky.social

I talked to the head of the Commonwealth Foundation and to one of the accused writers in the Granta AI scandal — & also had the past 15 years of the prize run through Pangram, which flagged only four stories as containing AI: all from this year and last. [gift link!]

The Creativity and Co-Creation part of @textculture.bsky.social is busy at work on multiple projects! See their descriptions on the link below, from authorship and fanfic to AI architectures and AI use surveys: arts.au.dk/en/text/abou...

Honored that the manuscript of Artificial Humanities is presented ar Pierre Huyghe’s exhibition at Fondation Beleyer. Pierre read the book before it was published and his reaction ended up as a blurb on it’s back cover @uofmpress.bsky.social www.fondationbeyeler.ch/startseite

Accidental car decor

Wow, Amazon actually prints some of the new books at their regional warehouses. See the slight difference? Amazon's the first one, press the second. I don't detect any difference in print inside though.

go and work w @alpar.bsky.social in copenhagen for a 2y postdoc on comparing llms and humans on metaphor processing (including eye-tracking fun stuff): employment.ku.dk/faculty/?sho...

Here's a commencement speech that didn't get booed at when AI was mentioned. begus.substack.com/p/no-paths-j...

I wish the Slovenian short story by Andrej Tomažin, 'Lackeys, Heros, and AI' (from 2018), was published in English by now! Tomažin brilliantly presents a literary jury facing the same question: What if we accidentally award a story written by AI?

Humanities AI Lab is teaching Artificial Humanities! The framework argues that literary and cultural analysis is essential to advancing and understanding AI. Thrilled to see it in the classrooms. english.fas.harvard.edu/english-298a...

Great to see Artificial Humanities reviewed in Critical AI! Many thanks to @jeddobson.bsky.social for a productive review

This is why I’m starting a new book series Artificial Humanities at the University of Exeter Press. Stay tuned for more soon!

In the Argentinian newspaper Clarín this week! I love that the piece on Artificial Humanities begins with Weizenbaum’s ELIZA. This is where it all started for me, and it’s what I’m currently working on - publishing David Avidan’s book of conversations with ELIZA from 1974 as soon as we can :)

1) I've all but given up on this, and expect next to zero engagement here because of how anti-'AI' this place is, but for whatever it's worth: I think 'AI' could be the best thing that's happened to 'the humanities' in a long time, for this reason: ...

AI & Society's review of "Artificial Humanities" says that it "stands out as a timely and foundational work." Read their full review at doi.org/10.1007/s001...

Filming a documentary today, ‘Who’s Afraid of Finnegans Wake’ by Brian Lally, discussing Latent Spacecraft @begus.bsky.social and Artificial Humanities @uofmpress.bsky.social

Reworking this talk for a different audience, two years later, the most striking change is that I can point to an established bridge between the humanities and AI research, called "Cultural AI." In 2024 I had to connect dots and ask the audience to believe they formed the shape of a bridge. +

But in 2026 there are a whole series of events explicitly thematizing the bridge. E.g. this ICML workshop, or +

the conference organized by @leifw.bsky.social. Also a special issue of Modern Fiction Studies in the works, ed. @richardjeanso.bsky.social & @aarthivadde.bsky.social. There's definitely a conversation emerging here. Disciplinary location still up in the air, but that's not too important imo.

Part 1 here www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9W8... This is the way.

World Wide Models: Literary Tools for Cultural AI

My book 'Artificial Humanities' was reviewed in AI & Society! The review calls the book “the most sustained and theoretically rigorous account to date” of how humanistic knowledge shapes AI, and describes it as a “timely and foundational work.” link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Talks from the Cultural AI conference at NYU's Remarque Institute are available online! Mine is about literary approaches that are immediately useful to study AI's cultural aspects. youtu.be/uO_GJgNIoWo?...

I'm starting a newsletter! I'll be sharing "dispatches" or "field notes" about AI, language, and culture, drawn from my research, reading, and traveling. Short, frequent, informal!

No one is surprised. What's more surprising is that robotics research from MIT in the 1990s and 2000s lead to these products.

Latent Spacecraft in Warsaw's MOMA with the fabulous @metahaven.bsky.social @ninabegus.bsky.social

Benchmarks are both technical and cultural thought experiments, often performing minimal literary forms. dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

I'm officially a philological engineer.

@ninabegus.bsky.social trained an LLM on Finnegan’s Wake and I think thats pretty cool! latentspacecraft.antikythera.org/finnegan/ “A way a lone a last a loved a long the”

Why has Hollywood not adapted Gilgamesh?

Experimental Narratives paper is still going strong, getting new citations every week: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

⭐️ @projectceti.bsky.social: New Paper! “The phonology of sperm whale coda vowels” shows whales produce vowel-like sounds organized in patterns, akin to human phonology.  Learn more here: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.2994

Recording from the Modes of Reading symposium at UC Berkeley this February. My talk is on Finnegans Wake in the form of a GAN and GPT-2, both trained from scratch on the novel audio and text. www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4PT...

On BBC News tonight on tech layoffs and the future with AI youtu.be/NhmKDGPVQj0

#ProcB in @theguardian.com | The phonology of sperm whale coda vowels: doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

You can preorder the first one through the press website with 30% off (code UMWEB30) to be delivered on October 20 @uofmpress.bsky.social press.umich.edu/Books/F/Firs...