"a. i. richards": Can artificial intelligence appreciate poetry?

Abstract

The message read: "Our new artificial intelligence program will replace Professor R. in tomorrow's literary criticism seminar." Would this make a difference? I dismiss the response that artificial intelligence cannot critically appreciate literature as it lacks emotion, and argue that it is the lack of a sense of significance that is important. I take this sense of significance to be a kind of abductive reasoning that identifies literary detail as important and, what is more, does so in a way that is of interest to many readers. The paper ends with a fivefold challenge to any institution thinking of replacing literature professors with machines.