Commentary evaluates the impact of LLM use in humanities through Debord's lens, suggesting implications for scholarship.
Muttaqin et al. (2026) provide an illuminating commentary on a recent article of mine in this journal (Metcalf Philosophy & Technology , 39 , 69, 2026). They view my pessimistic predictions about widespread LLM use in humanities scholarship in terms of Debord’s (1994) understanding of spectacle. In this brief commentary, I evaluate Muttaqin et al.’s analysis. I think the Debordian lens helps us clearly understand some of the problems with technical incrementalism, but I explain how my analysis differs in several ways from Debord’s overall view and approach.
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Thomas R. Metcalf (2026) studied this question.
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