Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Replaceability as a Diagnosis of Dead Academic Writing

This article responds to the question of what writing means in the age of artificial intelligence. I argue that the possibility of replacing authors with artificial intelligence can serve as a test of the deadness of particular forms of academic production. The less writing and inquiry lose when a particular author is removed, the more reason there is to suspect that such production was already dead: detached from embodiment, existential meaning, and political and social engagement. I show that writing as inquiry, autoethnography, and dirty writing cannot be replaced without initiating a different process of writing and inquiry, and therefore without significant loss. This argument does not require rejecting artificial intelligence or treating it solely as a threat. Artificial intelligence can become one element within an assemblage, but this need not entail removing the author or losing the existential, embodied, and personal dimensions that ultimately give academic writing its meaning.