The 8th Digital Humanities Utah Symposium (DHU8) was held on February 23 & 24, 2024, at The University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT).
DHU welcomes humanities scholars from across the Intermountain West and beyond. We especially invite early career scholars, graduate students, newcomers to the digital humanities (DH), and members of traditionally underrepresented groups to join us.
DHU 8 Keynote: “Almost AI: The Pleasure and Poetics of Staying Human in an Age of Machines”
Mark Sample, Davison College
When machines can write like humans, should humans try writing like machines? What would that even look like? How asymptotically close can human writing approach machine writing while still remaining human? This talk explores my creative practice, which toggles between writing and coding, and frames it as a response—if not an antidote—to machine-generated procedural writing. I first highlight the long history of collaborating with computers to write poetry and prose. Then I make a case that despite large-language models like ChatGPT getting all the attention, there is a distinct pleasure and power in building your own small-language models, by which I mean bespoke miniature models of human language. Tiny grammars. I will show how these small, handcrafted language models can reveal insights, challenge assumptions, and even provoke arguments, all while grounded in a profound appreciation for human creativity.
Mark Sample is the Chair and Professor of Digital Studies at Davidson College, a program he founded in 2014. His teaching and research focuses on algorithmic culture, digital narrative, and creative coding. Mark is a co-author of 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 (MIT Press), and his research has appeared in Debates in DH, Game Studies, and Digital Humanities Quarterly. He has been the recipient of multiple grants, including from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Humanities Center. His creative work, like The Infinite Catalog of Crushed Dreams, has been exhibited internationally, while his most recent work, such as Content Moderator Sim and 10 Lost Boys, uses the procedural rhetoric of video games to critique contemporary culture.
DHU8 Organizing Committee:
Dr. Kaylee Alexander (Committee Chair; Assistant Librarian, Data Management), Rebekah Cummings (Director, Digital Matters), Anna Neatrour (Librarian, Digital Initiatives), Dr. Elizabeth Callaway (Assistant Professor, English), Dr. Brandon Render (Assistant Professor, History), Elpitha Tsoutsounakis (Assistant Professor, Multi-disciplinary Design), Dr. Nathan Wainstein (Assistant Professor, English), Dr. Meekyung MacMurdie (Assistant Professor, Art History), Dr. Aniello de Santo (Assistant Professor, Linguistics), and Mike Bigler (Events & Scheduling Manager, Marriott Library)
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that this land, which is named for the Ute Tribe, is the traditional and ancestral homeland of the Shoshone, Paiute, Goshute, and Ute Tribes. The University of Utah recognizes and respects the enduring relationship that exists between many Indigenous peoples and their traditional homelands. We respect the sovereign relationship between tribes, states, and the federal government, and we affirm the University of Utah’s commitment to a partnership with Native Nations and Urban Indian communities through research, education, and community outreach activities.