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Speculative Propositions for Digital Writing Under the New Autonomous Model of Literacy

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Abstract

The proliferation of powerful new forms of automated assistive writing technologies, natural language generation technologies in particular, raises crucial questions about the future of literacy living and learning. This article situates such technologies within the historical trajectory of literacy studies, arguing that the acceleration of natural language generation platforms like GPT-3 may reflect the emergence of a new autonomous model of literacy. Guided by recent theoretical work on automation and global computation, the article offers a series of speculative propositions for digital writing under the new autonomous model of literacy, focusing on questions of agency and subjectivity within a regime of computational racial capitalism. The article concludes with a gesture towards a resistive digital writing pedagogy wherein literacy scholars, educators, and students can resist the dominating potentials of technologies ostensibly designed to assist them.

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  • 04 December 2022

    The original version of this article was updated to correct the typo error, "fart" to "far".

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  1. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, Texas State University, San Marcos, USA

    Bradley Robinson

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Robinson, B. Speculative Propositions for Digital Writing Under the New Autonomous Model of Literacy. Postdigit Sci Educ 5, 117–135 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00358-5

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