Center for Contemporary Cultures of Text – TEXT

TEXT examines how artificial intelligence has altered the conditions for the many elements and phases involved in creating and reading texts. The millennia-old tradition of using texts in all parts of society—in education, administration, literature, journalism, and many other domains—is a critical infrastructure that is now undergoing transformation. This change is driven both by new habits and practices and by new technologies, particularly language models. All these aspects will undoubtedly continue to evolve throughout the center’s existence. 

Until recently, one could be almost certain that a text was human-made—but that is no longer the case. The rapid spread of generative artificial intelligence has had a significant impact on text culture, where language models have become widely used and are now performing a variety of tasks. These swift changes have created an atmosphere of both great expectations and well-founded concerns. 

The center works on the evaluation and development of language technology, as well as on investigating when the introduction of new practices and technologies contributes to an improved text culture and when something valuable is lost. For example, the center will explore how culturally embedded values correspond with the linguistic material on which language models are trained. 

TEXT is based at Aarhus University. Its partners include It-vest, Danish Foundation Models, and Rhetor, with external collaborators from Cornell University, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and the University of Oslo.