In recent years, Large Language Model AI technologies have flooded the academic and creative industries and have been disrupting our work and creativity in ways it was difficult to imagine only five years ago. While cinema and literature experimented with the idea of AI by constructing speculative (often dystopic) futures, no one anticipated the sheer banality of AI: its rapid uptake and integration accelerating the ‘enshittification’ of the internet. Drawing on recent experiences of marking students’ writing, this paper traces a phenomenology of AI, guided by the following questions: How do AI-written essays present to us as such? What is lost when AI becomes embedded in everyday practices of sense making? Can AI be harnessed to cultural critique without loss? Is Prometheus burning, and have we finally invented something with the power to destroy the human?
Period
27 Nov 2025
Event title
Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Annual Conference 2025: So hot right now: cultures in rising temperatures