Hallucinated Monsters: Analogizing Epistemological and Phenomenological Indifference in Large Language Models

This article analogizes the ‘hallucinations’ of large language model generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems with the phenomenological representation of monsters in cultural production. In the language of AI ‘hallucination’ we find a correlate with our phenomenal recognition of the monster as a kind of morphological failure. The essay suggests that monsters remain an undertheorized topic in critical theory and suggests that they provide a model for explicating the emerging technological, sociopolitical and cultural problems which are menacing contemporary academic discourse. If AI chatbots are marked by what Johnan Fredrikzon calls epistemological indifference then does their visual output constitute a kind of phenomenological indifference that reaches an apotheosis in the figure of the monster?