The unbearable oldness of generative artificial intelligence: Or the re-making of digital narratives in times of ChatGPT

Abstract

The emerging discourse catalyzed by the opening up of generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) applications for everyday usage often presents Gen-AI as radically and disruptively new. I revisit two moments in early conversations in computational history to offer a historicization of Chat GPT: the making of digital narratives through computational methods of storing, sorting and sequencing semantic units and the production of digital narratives through computational architecture of computability and stacks. I offer a framework of critical turns that unpack Gen-AI as a new form of digital narrative practice that challenges the future of meaning and function of narratives in everyday lives.