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Journal article
Technical imagining: dispelling AI figments of the generative machine learning imagination
Culture, theory and critique, Vol.First online
14/11/2025
Appears in Recent Faculty of Education Publications
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Abstract
This paper outlines an understanding of technical imagining with which we can think through the relationship between GenML and the imagination. It counters the myth that GenML is analogous to the human mind. I note limitations in how accounts of the social imaginary and the digital imaginary address the free reimagining of digital technologies by individuals and collectives within the constraints of those technologies. To address this, I return to Gilbert Simondon’s cycle of the image and trace it through to Bernard Stiegler’s account of originary technicity and the noetic perceiver, to articulate how an individuating subject engages in a layered and recursive process of technical imagining. Bodily, affective and symbolic engagement with GenML outputs allows for critical and creative imagining, which connects outputs to their cultural, political and social milieus. The outputs of text-to-image generators, which can be related to established traditions of visual culture and critique, are in this respect contrasted with the less familiar displays of interactive conversational agents that give the impression of social agency.
Details
- Title
- Technical imagining: dispelling AI figments of the generative machine learning imagination
- Creators
- Erika Kerruish - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- Culture, theory and critique, Vol.First online
- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- Identifiers
- 991013329628802368
- Copyright
- © 2025 The Author(s).
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education; Humanities
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article