Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann

The rise of ChatGPT affords a fundamental transformation of the dynamics in human-technology interaction, as Large Language Model (LLM) applications increasingly emulate our social habits in digital communication. This poses a challenge to Don Ihde’s explicit focus on material technics and their affordances: ChatGPT did not introduce new material technics. Rather, it is a new digital app that runs on the same physical devices we have used for years. This paper undertakes a re-evaluation of some postphenomenological concepts, introducing the notion of quasi-materiality to better understand the role that user interfaces (UIs) play in affording different stabilities in technological mediation. We propose the term “active User Interface” (aUI) to denote the specifics of how ChatGPT makes use of LLMs within its UI design to afford seamless, intuitive conversations with a quasi-other in what Ihde termed “alterity relations”. Drawing inspiration from Peter-Paul Verbeek’s work on the intelligification of our material world through (AI) technologies, our analysis leads to the formulation of a novel stability afforded through aUIs: “machinic embodiment stability”. This concept sheds light on how ChatGPT’s aUI integrates with our established habits of digitally mediated social communication. As the use of LLMs is expected to become increasingly prevalent, this provides a new perspective on the current evolution of the technological landscape.

This paper investigates the impact of Large Language Model (LLM)-assisted writing on reflective thinking, building on existing adaptations of Albert Borgmann’s device paradigm to Don Ihde’s postphenomenology. Academic writing can facilitate engagement with our beliefs and pre-judgments, making it highly conducive to reflective thinking. However, generative AI tools, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft Word Copilot, may undermine such meaningful engagement as they ‘disburden’ users of the effort inherent in reflective writing. Still, we fall short when we leave unexamined the kinds of uses each writing app inclines its users to pursue. Despite using the same LLM, a cross-comparison reveals that the user interface (UI) design of ChatGPT and Word Copilot affords distinct forms of interaction: ChatGPT’s UI design may, in principle, facilitate reflective engagement through conversational interactions, prompting users to formulate and engage with their beliefs on a given topic. In contrast, Word Copilot emphasizes automated document production, making a similar kind of engaging use unviable. As a conceptual basis for the argument, this paper extends Ihde’s history of writing ‘technics’ and brings it together with recent conceptual developments in postphenomenology by discussing the apps in terms of ‘quasi-materiality’ of application UIs and the affordances they offer as part of ‘multistabilities’. This paper concludes with a call for academic writers to critically assess how their tools mediate academic writing and thinking processes, arguing that choosing a writing tool for academic writing has ceased to be a matter of personal preference and has become one of academic ethos.