On Technology and Authenticity

A collection of essays

Joseph Wright of Derby, *An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump*, 1768, oil on canvas.

This collection of essays is inspired by another essay originally written in a Baruch first- year writing class and, subsequently, published in Baruch’s First-Year Writing textbook, Join the Conversation. That essay, called “Finders and Keepers,” is by Baruch student Melody Lew, who writes about the idea of authenticity as the state of being “unedited,” where she weighs the differences between the technology of the notebook and the technology of the photograph as more or less “authentic” (124). Lew concludes that writing in the notebook can reveal so much about someone, that you can get closer to “entering my stream of notebook consciousness through my scribbles, crossed-out words, and final, legible words” where, in contrast, photographs can be much more staged and edited, hiding oneself much more seamlessly (125).

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is something we hear a lot about today. In the world of writing, it brings up questions of authenticity, which have been on my mind often. I don’t think there is an easy answer as to whether programs based on Large Language Models (LLMs) (e.g., ChatGPT) help produce writing that is “authentic.” But doing something like writing is special and I remain concerned how certain technologies, like LLMs, can shortchange the full experience of what writing can do for us as writers and as humans. Writing can be meaningful in ways that are unique to its own experience, where we can’t avoid confronting what language might mean when we mark it down on the page and see its reflections afterward.

Technology can certainly both hinder and help the ways we live authentically. But how so? And what does it mean to live “authentically” anyway? If we are to argue that AI can hinder writing’s ability to help us be authentic, it would still be wrong to say that technology, writ large, is something that can only hinder our ability to live the best version of ourselves. Writing, after all, is a technology realized through pen, pencil, and keyboard (as Reque’s essay thinks through in this collection).

When I have my own questions I am unsure of, I pose them to my students—they are, after all, intellectuals worthy of a deep respect, even though they might not always recognize this fact. In my ENG 2100 class, I asked my students to think about technology as something that could help and/or hinder their ability to live authentically, whatever that means to them.

In the essays that follow, these writers use writing to think about connections in their own lives between authenticity and technologies such as: clothing, YouTube, trains, factory farming, clocks, the internet, tablets, headphones, music, and writing. Collectively, these essays explore what it ultimately means to be human, where we are never fully isolated from the technologies we make and rely upon.

—Daniel Libertz, Department of English

Read the collection:

My Love and Disdain for Milk
by Eva Castaneda

Alone in a Crowded Train
by Deona Gjoka

Sick Beats, Identity Completes
by Garson Guan

How I Discovered Myself on YouTube
by Kory Lingenfelter

I Live for Myself, Not for Others
by Azrin Munshi

Dressed to Impress
by Nathaniel Oumarjeet

Two Mini Speakers with Wires Like Strings, These Are a Pair of My Favorite Things
by Luciano Pantano

Growth
by Luke Plantin

The Clock That Keeps Ticking
by Rachel Rakhamimov

The Disintegration of the Digital and the Real
by Wilson Wang