What language will AI Dante speak?
* Does language change literature, or does literature change language? —The future of literature and the literature of the future. *
The language of course changes literature. But that’s only on the social level, I dare say. Literature expresses the objective reality, and that’s all for that. Then come the great rules of language.
Probably, the most vivid example comes with Dante. When he chose to use the vernacular (the volgare) instead of classical Latin instead of classical Latin language, this choice determined the whole development of Italian and European literature for the ages to come.
There were a lot of similar shifts in the following ages. Masterpieces with their own language came first, and language of the masses had no other choice but to follow them.
We know the language of this or that nation, region, capital, the way the language of a country or social strata was influenced by different social events (revolution, emigration, social reforms, etc.). But we also know the language of Shakespeare, Goethe, Molière, , and in Russia Lomonosov, Karamzin, and Pushkin. The language not only of intelligentsia, educated classes, but of common people was definitely undergone changes after these writers.
Moreover, there’s such a thing that I would call the language of ideas. The language of the French Revolution, Karl Marx, Psychoanalysis, capitalism, neoliberalism defined not only the Western common language, but the mentality itself. Our life after «Capital: Critique of Political Economy» (Das Kapital) or «On the Origin of Species» was never the same. And will never be the same, whether we like it or not.
Needless to say, the language of the Bible not only defined the way we think, but was a crucial factor that formed the world’s history.
The same with the so-called pure, highbrow literature. Of course, one can write and read any Sentimental or Romantic pulp fiction stuff after Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ or Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’, but there’s mono denying that it changed the whole course of modern literature. Literature lost its virginity. Once seen, it cannot be unseen. Of course, nobody reads ‘Ulysses’ and ‘Finnegans Wake’ from cover to cover, like the old joke goes, but still, you can’t ignore it.
And that is the mass literature with its mass language that would be easily forgotten, but the complex, serious, and intellectually demanding writing remains and changes the future development of language in some mysterious, nonlinear way.
As for the future, there’s only one thing we know and we can be certain about – we don’t know our future at all. As Elon Musk has formulated it recently, we are entering the era of singularity. That is, to put it simply, there’ll be no rules, and old rules will no longer have any effect. One more definition should be mentioned. Singularity is a future point in time when artificial intelligence and technology grow so fast that they surpass human control and intelligence. So what language are we going to speak in the near future, no one can predict.
But we can at least try. Various facts suggest that we will have AI literature. There is already a special term - AI Literature – that designates an emerging literary category that includes works of prose or poetry in which writers integrate an artificial intelligence system – typically a Large Language Model – into the creative process. But what I mean is the next step. AI literature, written by AI and, who can say, maybe even written for AI.
At least in Japan, which could be, with all its futuristic design, devices, and tendencies, called the country of the future, there is such a phenomenon as ‘mobile literature’. Even a couple of decades ago the Japanese had novels written on cell phones. Written and read on electronic devices. There are even special literary awards for such kind of literature.
So why not AI literature? That would be very interesting for a human reader to read. If we COULD read it. Because I am not at all sure about the language. Maybe this literature will be written in some computer code or whatever it be. Anyway, it will be totally non-human literature. Or will AI and robots be human-like, anthropomorphic by that time? That means they will possess their own literary criticism and will need no human critics like me anymore. Writers and critics will lose their jobs. What a pity!
Perhaps AI literature is the point where our old dichotomy collapses. For the first time in history language speaks by itself, with nobody speaking. And like blinded Polyphemus we cry that Nobody has done this to us, Nobody writes, Nobody answers. The old Homeric trick of Odysseus, No-man, returns as the very signature of the machine. (And Joyce’s Ulysses is smiling somewhere nearby.)
Mallarmé dreamed of a writing where «it is language which speaks, not the author»— and Large Language Model fulfils this program literally, for it is language, the statistical body of language, detached from experience, biography, and death. AI literature is not a new literature written in a language; it is language generating literature out of itself. “In the beginning was the Word”, and now, at the end (of times), the Word is alone again, without man.
And to close the circle— Dante once chose the vulgar tongue over classical Latin language, and that choice determined centuries. One may imagine a future machine Dante, writing for machines in some immaculate code, who will one day make the reverse choice— and condescend to human speech as to his «volgare», the despised living dialect of the common people. Human language will then become what Vulgar Latin once was— an unworthy, warm, mortal vernacular— out of which the next great literature will grow.
* Does language change literature, or does literature change language? —The future of literature and the literature of the future. *
The language of course changes literature. But that’s only on the social level, I dare say. Literature expresses the objective reality, and that’s all for that. Then come the great rules of language.
Probably, the most vivid example comes with Dante. When he chose to use the vernacular (the volgare) instead of classical Latin instead of classical Latin language, this choice determined the whole development of Italian and European literature for the ages to come.
There were a lot of similar shifts in the following ages. Masterpieces with their own language came first, and language of the masses had no other choice but to follow them.
We know the language of this or that nation, region, capital, the way the language of a country or social strata was influenced by different social events (revolution, emigration, social reforms, etc.). But we also know the language of Shakespeare, Goethe, Molière, , and in Russia Lomonosov, Karamzin, and Pushkin. The language not only of intelligentsia, educated classes, but of common people was definitely undergone changes after these writers.
Moreover, there’s such a thing that I would call the language of ideas. The language of the French Revolution, Karl Marx, Psychoanalysis, capitalism, neoliberalism defined not only the Western common language, but the mentality itself. Our life after «Capital: Critique of Political Economy» (Das Kapital) or «On the Origin of Species» was never the same. And will never be the same, whether we like it or not.
Needless to say, the language of the Bible not only defined the way we think, but was a crucial factor that formed the world’s history.
The same with the so-called pure, highbrow literature. Of course, one can write and read any Sentimental or Romantic pulp fiction stuff after Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ or Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’, but there’s mono denying that it changed the whole course of modern literature. Literature lost its virginity. Once seen, it cannot be unseen. Of course, nobody reads ‘Ulysses’ and ‘Finnegans Wake’ from cover to cover, like the old joke goes, but still, you can’t ignore it.
And that is the mass literature with its mass language that would be easily forgotten, but the complex, serious, and intellectually demanding writing remains and changes the future development of language in some mysterious, nonlinear way.
As for the future, there’s only one thing we know and we can be certain about – we don’t know our future at all. As Elon Musk has formulated it recently, we are entering the era of singularity. That is, to put it simply, there’ll be no rules, and old rules will no longer have any effect. One more definition should be mentioned. Singularity is a future point in time when artificial intelligence and technology grow so fast that they surpass human control and intelligence. So what language are we going to speak in the near future, no one can predict.
But we can at least try. Various facts suggest that we will have AI literature. There is already a special term - AI Literature – that designates an emerging literary category that includes works of prose or poetry in which writers integrate an artificial intelligence system – typically a Large Language Model – into the creative process. But what I mean is the next step. AI literature, written by AI and, who can say, maybe even written for AI.
At least in Japan, which could be, with all its futuristic design, devices, and tendencies, called the country of the future, there is such a phenomenon as ‘mobile literature’. Even a couple of decades ago the Japanese had novels written on cell phones. Written and read on electronic devices. There are even special literary awards for such kind of literature.
So why not AI literature? That would be very interesting for a human reader to read. If we COULD read it. Because I am not at all sure about the language. Maybe this literature will be written in some computer code or whatever it be. Anyway, it will be totally non-human literature. Or will AI and robots be human-like, anthropomorphic by that time? That means they will possess their own literary criticism and will need no human critics like me anymore. Writers and critics will lose their jobs. What a pity!
Perhaps AI literature is the point where our old dichotomy collapses. For the first time in history language speaks by itself, with nobody speaking. And like blinded Polyphemus we cry that Nobody has done this to us, Nobody writes, Nobody answers. The old Homeric trick of Odysseus, No-man, returns as the very signature of the machine. (And Joyce’s Ulysses is smiling somewhere nearby.)
Mallarmé dreamed of a writing where «it is language which speaks, not the author»— and Large Language Model fulfils this program literally, for it is language, the statistical body of language, detached from experience, biography, and death. AI literature is not a new literature written in a language; it is language generating literature out of itself. “In the beginning was the Word”, and now, at the end (of times), the Word is alone again, without man.
And to close the circle— Dante once chose the vulgar tongue over classical Latin language, and that choice determined centuries. One may imagine a future machine Dante, writing for machines in some immaculate code, who will one day make the reverse choice— and condescend to human speech as to his «volgare», the despised living dialect of the common people. Human language will then become what Vulgar Latin once was— an unworthy, warm, mortal vernacular— out of which the next great literature will grow.