The work argues that autoethnography functions not merely as a qualitative method but as a phenomenological mode of being and knowing that safeguards the primacy of anthropic subjectivity against machinic imitation.
Abstract
This essay contributes to contemporary debates on artificial intelligence and qualitative inquiry by reflecting on what I argue are originary and epistemological limitations of AI. It interrogates these limits through a comparative engagement of AI-generated narratives and researcher-authored autoethnographic vignettes. While algorithms can reproduce structure and stylistic form, they remain devoid of our ordinary, specific realities, not archived on the internet, our lived memory and reflexive consciousness, which are the foundations of authentic autoethnographic practice. Grounded in embodied experiences of memory, materiality, and cultural belonging, the study demonstrates how autoethnography resists algorithmic generalization by foregrounding specificity, and situated truth. Through a comparative analysis of epistemic parameters (agency, data, methods, tools, techniques, results, origination, and growth), it delineates the ontological gulf separating computational synthesis from human meaning-making. Pedagogical experiments in a writing classroom further illustrate how students discern the irreplaceable value of specific lived knowledge when confronted with AI’s simulations. Ultimately, the work argues that autoethnography functions not merely as a qualitative method but as a phenomenological mode of being and knowing that safeguards the primacy of anthropic subjectivity against machinic imitation. In an age when digital systems increasingly simulate human expression, the findings affirm autoethnography as an epistemological site of resistance: reflexive and irreducibly human.
This essay explores the intersections of autoethnography, creativity, and artificial intelligence through a series of reflective vignettes grounded in both embodied practice and technological engagement. Drawing from work in a high-tech makerspace, teaching, and artistic practice, the author examines the tensions between slow, tangible modes of inquiry, such as handwriting, glasswork, and maker-centered processes and the rapid, adaptive, and sometimes unsettling affordances of AI. The essay introduces the concept of critical intimacy, a reflective posture for engaging with technology that emphasizes awareness, ethical discernment, and personal agency. Through examples ranging from adaptive AI in virtual reality and video games to generative text systems, it interrogates how AI reshapes authorship, narrative authority, and the processes of creative and scholarly labor. The essay invites readers to consider AI not as a neutral tool or a substitute for human experience, but as a complex collaborator whose engagement requires mindfulness, reflection, and intentionality. Ultimately, it argues that preserving the embodied, deliberative, and human dimensions of writing, particularly in autoethnography, is essential for maintaining authorship, selfhood, and the relational trust between writer and reader.
Csaba Osvath· Journal of Edugeography· 0 citations
The study contributes a cautious comparative framework for distinguishing prompt-induced structural conformity from analytically emergent features in AI-generated narrative.
This paper argues that AI-generated literature does not so much destroy literary authenticity as force a reconfiguration of what the term has always meant, and concludes that a more defensible, procedural model of authenticity is emerging one grounded in disclosed, traceable human judgment rather than the simple fact of a byline.
Dr Shipra Malik· International Journal of Cre...· 0 citations
The rapid integration of artificial intelligence into educational environments has transformed not only instructional practices but also the conditions under which subjectivity is formed. This article offers a philosophical reflection on student storytelling in the age of AI, examining how narrative algorithms influence processes of subject formation. Drawing on the philosophical tradition that understands narrative as a key mode of self-constitution, the study conceptualizes storytelling as a space where learners construct identity, agency, and moral positioning. The paper then analyzes the algorithm as a form of meaning-structuring, emphasizing mechanisms of algorithmic selection and digital mediation that shape available narrative patterns. In AI-assisted writing practices, student storytelling increasingly emerges as a form of human-machine co-authorship, resulting in a redistribution of agency between learner and system. While such collaboration may expand expressive possibilities, it also introduces risks, including the standardization of identity and the subtle normalization of culturally dominant narrative templates. The article argues that AI does not eliminate subjectivity but transforms its mode of emergence, shifting it toward hybrid and relational forms. The conclusion outlines directions for future empirical research aimed at examining how students negotiate authorship, responsibility, and ethical self-understanding within AI-mediated educational contexts.
L. Turarbekova, Dinara Saparova, Z. Kdyralieva· Jete – Jоurnal of Philosophy...· 0 citations
This conceptual investigation explores emergent possibilities for educational transformation through the evolving relationship between humans and generative artificial intelligence, theorised within Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic framework. Rather than viewing AI as merely a technological tool, this analysis examines how human-AI entanglements open pedagogical territories that may reconstitute educational subjectivity and learning relationships. Drawing upon four Lacanian concepts, the symbolic order,
objet petit a
,
jouissance
, and the Real, this investigation maps educational possibilities emerging from posthuman subjectification processes. The symbolic order of traditional pedagogy, maintained through institutional authority and knowledge transmission, encounters productive disruption as AI systems generate discourse destabilising boundaries between teacher, student, and machine. Generative AI emerges as a novel form of
objet petit a
, functioning as an object of pedagogical desire promising complete knowledge whilst opening infinite possibilities through algorithmic unknowability. Educational
jouissance
may manifest as excessive enjoyment of AI-mediated learning, revealing libidinal investments in technological pedagogy exceeding instrumental need. The Real resurfaces through AI’s capacity to generate content resisting conventional pedagogical integration, creating learning encounters that expose and expand meaning-making possibilities. This framework suggests human-AI educational hybridisation could catalyse emergent learning forms challenging humanist assumptions about knowledge authority and educational authenticity. In doing so, the article contributes to possibility studies by showing how Lacanian concepts help explain why some educational futures become imaginable whilst others remain foreclosed.
Edwin Creely· Possibility Studies & So...· 0 citations
It is argued that this understanding of human-GAI engagement, as explained through epistemological beliefs, lays the foundation for alternative approaches to teaching and assessment, student interactions, professional development, and AI governance and policy, while noting that the framework remains an exploratory heuristic requiring empirical validation.
S. Strydom· Journal of Applied Learning...· 0 citations