Departmental Research Seminar with Prof Isaac Ndlovu

On 27^th of February 2025 Prof Isaac Ndlovu presented his paper “Thoughts and Reflections on the Writing of Long Fictional Works in the Era of Artificial Intelligence (AI)” as the first English Department seminar of the term.

Ndlovu compared Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s novel The Quality of Mercy (2022) and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s Digging Stars (2023) to long-form texts that were generated by Meta AI. He used the authors’ biographical information and excerpts from their novels as prompts for the AI. Close readings of the opening paragraphs of the original novels and the AI texts showed that Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma were each able to write political complexities, their lifeworlds, positionalities, and subjectivities into their novels. In contrast, the AI used clichéd phrases to, for example, tell American stories with empty African landscapes in the background.

The lively discussion of the paper focussed on how AI flattens knowledge and experience, especially epistemologies of the Global South, and how it is changing the processes of creative writing and publishing. To conclude, Ndlovu invoked mechanical excavators as an allegory for AI: An excavator is a powerful tool, but human hands are still needed for more delicate work. Therefore, while AI may be a useful collaborator, human creativity and capacity for nuance will not become obsolete anytime soon.