Meaning Without Mind

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The basic concept that makes generative artificial intelligence (AI) possible is that meaning can emerge out of arbitrariness. This hard-won modern discovery flies in the face of the traditional and commonsensical belief that meaning can only be the product of mind and intention. The discovery that meaningful structure can emerge without mind or intention transformed the human sciences, above all the study of language. When text can be generated effortlessly and endlessly, the significant literary act is no longer writing but reading—specifically, the kind of selective reading known as criticism or curation. The literary canon of the future may consist of those automatically generated texts selected by the best readers as most valuable for human purposes. “The true locus of writing is reading,” Roland Barthes argued, and while that may not have been true at the time, or even now, in an AI future it will be.</jats:p>