Alex Reid, professor of digital rhetoric, Media & Artificial Intelligence

what I’m reading on AI

1–2 minutes
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Recently I decided that I would not serve a second, three-year term as department chair. My term ends in August, so there are still a few, months in my sentence to be served. Once I’ve completed my term, I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it.

Meanwhile I’m making more space for my research, and I’m catching up on things I’ve been meaning to read.

Academic Texts
  • Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with our Nonhuman Symbionts by N. Katherine Hayles
  • An Artificial History of Natural Intelligence: Thinking with Machines from Descartes to the Digital Age by David W. Bates
  • The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence by Matteo Pasquinelli
  • The Speculative Remark: (One of Hegel’s Bons Mots) by Jean-Luc Nancy, Céline Surprenant
  • Against Continuity: Gilles Deleuze’s Speculative Realism by Arjen Kleinherenbrink
  • Operational Images: From the Visual to the Invisual by Jussi Parikka
  • Technológos in Being: Radical Media Archaeology & the Computational Machine by Wolfgang Ernst
Popular nonfiction
  • Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI by Anil Ananthaswamy
  • Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick
  • The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do by Erik J. Larson

Most of these are from this decade. Hayles’ book comes in January I think. Nancy’s Speculative Remark is older (translated 2001 but 1973 originally) but obviously I’ve never read it, and I’ve become increasingly interested in the concept of speculation. Also, and more generally significant, I am among those who conjecture that LLMs signal a new consideration for deconstructive texts, a posterior anteriority as it were (á même, an sich). The Speculative Remark is said to be an exemplary example of such. I guess I’ll find out.

2 responses to “what I’m reading on AI”

  1. craniac Avatar
    craniac

    One of my students is using ChatGPT to turn his essay into a short story where he argues with his instructor. Of course, I lazily had ChatGPT write a response. It is cheesy and terrible. Here is an excerpt:

    As Crane spoke, his words wove in and out like a rhythm, a soft, quiet rhyme to the beat of truth. “The ‘edtech’ we see today—its promises, its slick design—is a product of a system that seeks control, not creativity. It reduces learning to metrics and tests, replacing the human element with data. It is Foucauldian power at its finest, a system of surveillance and normalization. But the true teacher, the true guide, does not bind the student in chains of numbers or algorithms. The true teacher unlocks the mind.”

    The Student nodded, understanding now. The battle they fought was not between the old and the new—it was between the systems that had manipulated both. The digital age, the lure of innovation—it was not an enemy to be destroyed, but a tool to be wielded with wisdom.

    Crane’s body stood taller now, his mind sharper. “Alex Reid,” he continued, “writes that today’s educators and learners are bound in a web of ‘productivity’—but productivity is not the measure of growth. Growth, true growth, is the ability to transform, to bend, not break, in the face of new challenges.”

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  2. Rick Wilson Avatar
    Rick Wilson

    Thanks for sharing this thoughtful update and reading list! The blend of academic rigor and speculative curiosity here is inspiring. Wishing you a productive transition back to research—looking forward to your future insights.

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