TEXT: Center for Contemporary Cultures of Text is organized to understand the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) on writing cultures at this pivotal moment in history, in which — after more than 6,000 years of handcrafted text production — we see all aspects of text creation and use are being altered. We are convinced that a research-based understanding of the role of text in a new technological environment is a condition for a prevailing human-centered control of production and usage of text.

The center works on the evaluation and development of language technology based on linguistic research, as well as on investigating when the introduction of new practices and technologies contributes to a better text culture—and when something valuable is lost. One of the first subprojects is to examine how culturally embedded values correspond to the linguistic material that language models are trained on.

TEXT is based at Aarhus University. The center’s partners include It-vest, Danish Foundation Models, and Rhetor, with external participants from Cornell University, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and the University of Oslo.