The following text is an extended version of the presentation given at the DiscoursNet Workshop “The Digitalization of the Knowledge Economy: how AI is changing our view on the world” (8.–9.5.2026). It presents preliminary thoughts for a more extended research on generative AI in third party funding and research evaluation.
I would like to offer you a simple yet, I would say, significant perspective.
We misconceive AI because we misconceive what texts are and how they work.
Or, a bit more nuanced:
Todays understanding of AI, specifically AI Chatbots, is very much rooted in our collective representation of what texts are and how they work socially. And I would argue, that this is a source of trouble, because our collective textual practices – how we do things with texts in our everyday life – are largely marked by normative but often mistaken presuppostions about what a text is, how its truth is constituted, and what role the subject plays for this, both as an author and as a reader.
Continue reading “Checking AI? Why we need more discourse analytical enlightenment”