{"title":"\"A. I. Richards\": Can Artificial Intelligence Appreciate Poetry?","authors":"J. Phelan","doi":"10.1353/phl.2021.0005","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":51912,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/phl.2021.0005","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2021.0005","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
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.
期刊介绍:
For more than a quarter century, Philosophy and Literature has explored the dialogue between literary and philosophical studies. The journal offers a constant source of fresh, stimulating ideas in the aesthetics of literature, theory of criticism, philosophical interpretation of literature, and literary treatment of philosophy. Philosophy and Literature challenges the cant and pretensions of academic priesthoods by publishing an assortment of lively, wide-ranging essays, notes, and reviews that are written in clear, jargon-free prose. In his regular column, editor Denis Dutton targets the fashions and inanities of contemporary intellectual life.