From Textual Experiments to Experimental Texts: Expressive Repetition in "Artificial Intelligence Literature"

Abstract: Since the birth of artificial intelligence 70 years ago, attempts at literary "creation" with computers are present in the course of technological development, creating what one might call "artificial intelligence literature" (AI literature). Evolving from "textual experiments" conducted by technologists to "experimental texts" that explore the possibilities of conceptions of literature, AI literature integrates primitive problems including machine thinking, text generation, and machine creativity, which exhibits the two-way interaction between social ideas and technology. In the early stage, the mutual support between technological path and artistic ideas turned out to be a failure, while AI-driven expressive repetitions are made probable in the contemporary technological context, paving the way for the transformation of AI literature from proof for technical possibilities to self-verification of literary value.