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Not Minds, but Signs: Reframing LLMs through Semiotics This paper challenges the prevailing tendency to frame Large Language Models (LLMs) as cognitive systems, arguing instead for a semiotic perspective that situates these models within the broader dynam...

Next week (2/20 10AM EST) ORG will discuss Davide Picca's @arxiv-cs-cl.bsky.social preprint, Not Minds, but Signs: Reframing LLMs through Semiotics. The paper "challenges the prevailing tendency to frame LLMs as cognitive systems, arguing instead for a semiotic perspective"

arxiv.org/abs/2505.17080

Does Writing Have a Future? In Does Writing Have a Future?, a remarkably perceptive work first published in German in 1987, Vilém Flusser asks what will happen to thought and communica...

Next Friday (2/13 10AM) ORG will conclude its discussion of Vilém Flusser's 1987 book, Does Writing Have a Future? We will read from "Scripts" to "Subscript" and the brief Afterword.

www.upress.umn.edu/978081667023...

Does Writing Have a Future? In Does Writing Have a Future?, a remarkably perceptive work first published in German in 1987, Vilém Flusser asks what will happen to thought and communica...

Next Friday (2/6 10AM) ORG will carry on discussing the next five entries (from "Books" to "Desks") of Vilém Flusser's 1987 book, Does Writing Have a Future?

www.upress.umn.edu/978081667023...

Obituary: Brian Cantwell Smith (1950 to 2025) - Faculty of Information Former dean wove philosophy and computation into a lifelong inquiry into the human dimensions of intelligence, judgment, and meaning Born into a prominent Canadian family known for both its…

The Faculty of Information at @utoronto.ca remembers Brian Cantwell Smith's remarkable life and contributions to philosophy and computation. He will be deeply missed: bit.ly/49roA74

We're honored to bring his final book project, "Computational Reflections," to readers in May: bit.ly/4sFDlux

Does Writing Have a Future? In Does Writing Have a Future?, a remarkably perceptive work first published in German in 1987, Vilém Flusser asks what will happen to thought and communica...

Next Friday (1/30 10AM) ORG will meet to discuss the next four entries (from "Spoken Languages" to "Deciphering") of Vilém Flusser's 1987 book, Does Writing Have a Future?

www.upress.umn.edu/978081667023...

Does Writing Have a Future? In Does Writing Have a Future?, a remarkably perceptive work first published in German in 1987, Vilém Flusser asks what will happen to thought and communica...

Next Friday (1/23 10AM) ORG will meet to the next four entries (from "Letters of the Alphabet" to "Instructions") of Vilém Flusser's 1987 book, Does Writing Have a Future?

www.upress.umn.edu/978081667023...

Does Writing Have a Future? In Does Writing Have a Future?, a remarkably perceptive work first published in German in 1987, Vilém Flusser asks what will happen to thought and communica...

Next Friday (1/9 10AM) ORG will meet to discuss Mark Poster's introduction to, and the first four entries of, Vilém Flusser's 1987 book, Does Writing Have a Future?

www.upress.umn.edu/978081667023...

Seasons greetings to all! Need a chaser for all the holiday mirth? Why not join us on January 2nd @ 10AM to read Catherine Legg's preprint book chapter, "Peirce and Generative AI", forthcoming April 2026 in the edited volume, Pragmatism Revisited. Avail here: philarchive.org/archive/LEGP...

Is the Internet a Museum of Computing? Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public LicenseThe open access edition of this book was made possible by generous

Due to the US holiday, ORG will skip a week to carry on discussing the second chapter of Krapp's Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation on December 5th 10AM.

direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

Please note that ORG has been CANCELLED for this week.

Due to time conflicts we will push the planned Friday reading of Krapp's Computing Legacies for one week, reconvening on 11/21 at 10AM.

Following a one-week hiatus, ORG will reconvene on 11/14 10AM EST to read the first chapter of Peter Krapp's 2024 book, Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation. @mitpress.bsky.social

direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

Next Friday (10/31 10AM), ORG will discuss @amoorelouise.bsky.social et al's recent article, "Politics of the Prompt", addressing "the politics of prompting in machine learn­ing, at a time when bureaucratic & democratic government is undergoing trans­formation."

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Continuing to explore the seam between structure and statistics, this Fri 10AM we'll discuss “GraphRAG on Technical Documents - Impact of Knowledge Graph Schema” from the latest issue of Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge.

drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/doc...

The différance engine: large language models and poststructuralism - AI & SOCIETY This essay argues that large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-type transformer architectures, actualize Jacques Derrida’s concept of différance. Originally introduced within the context of poststructuralist theory and semiotics, différance designates the way meaning is produced through a system of differences and deferrals, rather than stable reference. Drawing on this framework, the essay examines how LLMs generate meaningful content by calculating statistical differences across massive textual corpora—foregrounding processes of spacing, temporalization, and trace. It proposes that LLMs can be understood as “différance engines” that computationally enact the very mechanisms Derrida theorized. In addition to tracing these points of intersection, the essay reflects on the philosophical consequences of this alignment, including challenges to logocentrism, authorship, and the metaphysics of presence. It then addresses three potential criticisms of this approach, arguing that the use of Derrida’s work in this context is not a misappropriation, but a continuation and reiteration of its logic. And it concludes by identifying three systemic limitations and by charting opportunities for future research in this domain. The essay thus shows, on the one hand, how LLMs can be read through poststructuralist theory, and on the other, how poststructuralist theory can be clarified and rendered accessible through the technical operations of contemporary AI.

After a one-week hiatus, ORG will reconvene on 10/10 (10AM), to discuss @davidgunkel.bsky.social's latest article, "The différance engine: large language models and poststructuralism"

doi.org/10.1007/s001...

Next week (9/26 10AM) ORG discusses Gastaldi & Pellissier's 2021 article in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, "The calculus of language: explicit representation of emergent linguistic structure through type-theoretical paradigms".

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

www.giannigastaldi.com

The embarrassment of being human New materialism and object-oriented ontology have recently gained widespread attention. Taking as exemplary the work of Jane Bennett and Graham Harman (yet also drawing on other figures within these ....

Tomorrow morning (9/19 10AM), ORG will discuss Benjamin Boysen's "The embarrassment of being human: A critique of new materialism and object-oriented ontology".

doi.org/10.1111/OLI....

Golden Age of Analog | Critical Inquiry: Vol 48, No 2 Abstract Digital and analog: What do these terms mean today? The use and meaning of such terms change through time. The analog, in particular, seems to go through various phases of popularity and disu...

This Friday (9/12 10AM), ORG will read Alexander Galloway's article, "Golden Age of Analog". "This article will aim to define the analog explicitly and argue, perhaps counterintuitively, that the golden age of analog thinking was not a few decades past..."

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

This Friday (9/5 10AM) we’re closing out Leif Weatherby’s Language Machines, reading chapter 6 and the conclusion.

This Friday (8/29 10AM) ORG will carry on discussing Chapter 5 of Leif Weatherby's Language Games.

This Friday (8/22 10AM) ORG will carry on discussing Chapter 4 of Leif Weatherby's Language Games.

Taking a one-week hiatus, on 8/15 @ 10AM ORG will carry on discussing Chapters 2 & 3 of Weatherby's Language Games: "The Eliza Effect Goes Global: Intelligence as Simulacrum", and "The Semiological Surround, or How Language is the Medium of Computation".

Next Friday (8/1 10AM) we will carry on reading Language Machines, Ch.1: "...the humanities lost public and even academic status as the primary knowers of language in the [1990s high period of literary theory]; the recovery of the object is urgent for a world with language machines."

This Friday (7/25 10AM), ORG will read the Introduction to @leifw.bsky.social's new book Language Machines.
www.upress.umn.edu/978145297351...

Stochastic contingency machines feeding on meaning: on the computational determination of social reality in machine learning - AI & SOCIETY In this paper, I reflect on the puzzle that machine learning presents to social theory to develop an account of its distinct impact on social reality. I start by presenting how machine learning has pr...

This Friday (6/27 10AM) ORG will read Richard Groß's piece in AI & Society, "Stochastic contingency machines feeding on meaning: on the computational determination of social reality in machine learning"

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Alan Díaz Alva: Technics and Contingency For the official version of record, see here: Díaz Alva, A. (2023). Technics and Contingency: Ontological Productivity in Computation. Media Theory, 7(2), 37–76. Retrieved from Technics a…

Next Friday (6/13 10AM), ORG will read Alan Diaz Alva's 2023 article in @meejatheory.bsky.social Media Theory, "Technics and Contingency: Ontological Productivity in Computation"

mediatheoryjournal.org/2024/02/20/a...

This Friday (6/6 10AM) ORG will discuss @akarshkumar0101.bsky.social, Clune, Lehman & Stanley's paper, "Questioning Representational Optimism in Deep Learning: The Fractured Entangled Representation Hypothesis".

Next week (5/30 10AM) ORG will conclude our reading of Overwijk's Cybernetic Capitalism, reading Chapter 4 and the Epilogue.

Next week (5/23 10AM) we will continue with Overwijk's Cybernetic Capitalism, reading Chapter 3, "The Vitalist Alternative: Sympoietic Multitudes"

Testing Bluesky-Mastodon profile bridge, do not adjust your sets

Next week (5/16 10AM) we will carry on with Overwijk's Cybernetic Capitalism, reading Chapter 2, "Spiraling into Control: Paradoxes of Thermodynamic Rationalization"