Artificial intelligence and the death of the academic author

Abstract

In his essay 'The Death of the Author,' Roland Barthes describes the fiction author as a blender of cultural artifacts. This paper identifies parallels between that activity and the actions currently performed by Large Language Models (LLMs). It then goes further to argue that, in Health Professions Education academia (indeed, all academia), authorship is a mechanical role ideally suited to LLMs, and should be given to LLMs, freeing academic researchers to focus on the actual creative and contributive portion of any work: the research.

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