Ethical Answerability in Science, Art, and Life

The three domains of human culture - science, art, and life - gain unity only in the individual person who integrates them into his own unity (…). But what guarantees the inner connection of the constituent elements of a person? Only the unity of answerability.

Mikhail Bakhtin

It is cheaper and easier to program a robot to write texts than to check the veracity of the piece of information.

Fernando Osório ¹

Perhaps the most surprising novelty in academia (and society) in recent times has been the creation and rapid dissemination of ChatGPT, “a free-of-charge artificial intelligence (AI), created by OpenAI,” which ‘talks’ with the interlocutor, in a natural manner and can be accessed by Android or iPhone (iOS) cell phones, without the need to download applications. ChatGPT is able to generate texts through Artificial Intelligence. In a very short time, it became worldly known and a large number of articles have been produced about this AI in the various media. The feelings provoked have been quite diverse – fascination and fear, admiration, indifference, enthusiasm –, more specifically in relation to the skillfulness and competence (and kindness...) in writing answers and composing texts in different areas of knowledge. When asked ChatGPT to define itself, Fábio Cozman 2023, (online), from the Center for Artificial Intelligence/USP, got the following response:

I am ChatGPT, an artificial language of intelligence model developed by OpenAI. I was designed to answer questions and perform various tasks using natural language. My role is to help provide information and solutions to problems through conversations with users like you.

The last issue of Pesquisa FAPESP [Research FAPESP], launched in March 2023, produced a well-elaborated article about the GPT, “O universo expandido da inteligência artificial” [The Expanded Universe of Artificial Intelligence] (ANDRADE, pp.16-25). One of the aspects addressed here is the question of the possible impacts of Chat on the production of knowledge and on the integrity of science. It is a topic that has given rise to studies, research and seminars at universities and schools at all levels. In the same article, Dora Kaufman (PUC-SP [Pontificate University of São Paulo] and C4AI) says that “[from] time to time, new technologies appear and force us to review our behaviors and methods of working and teaching” (apud Andrade, 2023, p.22). This statement evokes Bakhtin and Medvedev’s writing in 1928:

New means of representation force us to see new aspects of visible reality, but these new aspects cannot clarify or significantly enter our horizon if the new means necessary to consolidate them are lacking (1978, p.134).²

They also force us to think about regulatory frameworks for the use of ChatGPT and, above all, in terms of research ethics, the principles that regulate it, codes of honor as existing in some American and Canadian universities, among others. And, for us, scholars of works of Bakhtin and the Circle, the debate around AI (and ChatGPT) and its use also evoke the ethical principles ever defended by Bakhtin and present in his first published text, “Art and Answerability,” in 1919 (1990, pp.1-3).³ In all moments of life and research, the scholar states that one is prone to answer for their acts, that is, they are responsible and responsive for those acts in the “unity of guilt and answerability.”

However, AI is a scientific reality. In the Seminar promoted by USP [University of São Paulo], “ChatGPT: Potencial, Limites e Implicações para a Universidade” [ChapGPT: Potential, Limits, and Implications for the University], held on March 21, 2023, many of the teaching and learning possibilities offered by ChatGPT were presented and discussed, alongside the concerns with its use. As an advance in technology and science, it is not up to us to deny and/or prohibit its use, but to seek ways of using it that allow increasing the human capacity for knowledge, without replacing it by the machine. In addition, in the defense of open science, we can envision, through Chat, opportunities to improve communication between science and society, which is very positive. In fact, AI constitutes a new challenge to the way knowledge is built and will continue to be built from now on.

Ethical issues that have been raised are also crucial in the analysis and understanding of discourses belonging to different spheres of human activity. But we can safely say that, throughout its existence, Bakhtiniana has always had the satisfaction of disseminating research whose ethical concern is explicit or latent in its texts. And that again can be observed in this issue, in which the three fields of human culture intertwine: science, art and life. Let us therefore move on to the presentation of the ‘original’articles (still written by human beings!) of Bakhtiniana 18.2.

As for the production of theoretical knowledge in the area of language studies, we begin with the presentation of the article by Filipo Figueira (UNICAMP), “Chasing the Ordinary Way of Meaning: Amongst Language-Games and Everyday Practices.” In it, the author seeks to understand and develop the concept of “ordinary meaning,” initially proposed by Michel Pêcheux. In this respect, the author puts Pêcheux’s suggestions in dialogue with those of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the culturalist reinterpretation elaborated by Michel de Certeau in the everyday “Arts de faire” [Art of Doing]. He exemplifies his argument by reading a post by Memorial Inumeráveis [Innumerable Memorial] on social networks. It is also the theoretical concern that mobilizes Euclides Barbosa Ramos de Souza (UFPB) in writing the article “The Philosophy Behind the Conversation: Implicatures and the Indirect Speech Acts.” By accessing the studies by Paul Grice and John Searle, the author seeks to show how their theories interrelate organically and symbiotically.

Still in the theoretical field, we have the article that comes to us from Russia, through the researchers Sandra Madureira and Anna Smirnova, both from PUC-SP. It is “Principles of the St. Petersburg Phonological School in Speech Corpora Design,” written by five researchers: Pavel Skrelin, Tatiana Kachkovskaia, Daniil Kocharov, Vera Evdokimova, Uliana Kochetkova. At the time of submission, they had been working on corpora design and annotation in phonetics research at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia.

As for the production of knowledge related to the arts, we have two articles. The first is signed by Marília Amorim (UFRJ and Paris VIII) and refers to dance: “The Dance Body as an Arena of Values and the Chronotope of the Theater – An Exercise of Analysis.” The author shows us how the theater constitutes itself as a chronotope that materializes spatial-temporally the socio-aesthetic values of classical ballet and, through chronotopic transgressions, of modern ballet. On the discourse of literature, João Carlos de Carvalho (UFAC) writes “The Jewish Amazon by Moacyr Scliar: The Word of the Other as Affirmation of the Noncoincidence of the Other in Oneself.” The author analyzes two novels by the author from Rio Grande do Sul, seeking how the Jewish imaginary and the scenario of the Amazon region dialogue in speeches that cross not only the country, but the world and history, forming and founding ethnicities that intersect in Brazilian lands.

As for the third group of articles, we can say that they refer more directly to the discourse of life, when dealing with motherhood, racism, feminicide and expiation (or not) of the past; and three of them have Dialogic Discourse Analysis as their theoretical-methodological foundation. The first, “Interaction, Heteroglossia and Discourse in the #maternidadereal,” presents a study by Bárbara Luisa Martins Wieler (UFPR) based on the Bakhtinian concept of heteroglossia. The author takes speeches that responded to a challenge on Facebook as an object of analysis, questioning the traditional values assumed by women in the role of mothers. According to the analysis, the expression itself and the posts about “#maternidadereal [real maternity]” show how the idea of “real” varies depending on the various positions taken by the mothers. Maria Helena Cruz Pistori (PUC-SP) seeks to understand the dissemination and consolidation of an ideological sign of resistance, based on a verbal-visual statement, in the article “Racism and the Constitution of an Ideological Sign of Resistence.” In the search for the meanings of a photo and the photo reportage in which it is inserted, the dialogical chains found show how a discourse of resistance to racism and other social inequalities is constituted, expressed in an ideological sign. Three is the number of authors of “Dialogic Analysis of Discourses Mobilized by Defendants Accused of Femicide in Jury Trial.” They are Andreia Aparecida de Souza (CIES – PR), Adriana Delmira Mendes Polato (UNESPAR), and Neil Franco (UEM-PR). Dealing with speeches limited to the sphere of legal activity, the authors analyze male defendants’ testimonies in the Jury’s Court, and show how images of men as victimized, disturbed and forced to act are built.

The atonement discourse, object of study by Maria Ferreira (ISCSP/UL, Portugal), in “Strategies of Re-Elaboration of the Past and the Authenticity of SPEECH ACTS of Political Atonement,” would fit in the sphere of political activity. This is the analysis of the Declaration of a Prime Minister of Japan, in 2015, during a press conference. The article seeks the discursive legitimation strategies used by the former Japanese Prime Minister, especially those identified by Van Leeuwen, showing how these strategies of elaborating the past influence the authenticity of a discursive act of political atonement.

Finally, Bakhtiniana publishes a review of a recent work by Ken Hirschkop, an infamous specialist in Bakhtinian work, written by Filipe Almeida Gomes (UEMG). This is HIRSCHKOP, Ken. The Cambridge Introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin. Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2021, 194p. Ebook. (Series: Cambridge Introductions to Literature). Critically, the author recognizes the value of the reviewed work, and arouses the reader’s curiosity to know it and, especially, to reflect upon it.

Last but not least, we add that Bakhtiniana continues to advance in the path of open science: the novelty of this issue is that the articles have been published ahead of print. The ethical commitment to scientific rigor, sharing, and transparency in research, editorial procedures and its popularization continues, with the potential for greater interaction among researchers. Therefore, we invite everyone – readers, authors and collaborators – to actively respond to these texts, savoring and including this set in their research. As readers can see, this is an issue that brings together nine Brazilian researchers from a myriad of Brazilian universities and institutions (UFRJ, UFPB, UEMG, CIES-PR, UNESPAR, UEM-PR, PUC-SP, UNICAMP, UFPR, UFAC), and seven researchers from foreign universities (Université Paris VIII – Paris, France, Saint Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg - Russia, University of Lisbon, Portugal).

We are once again greatly indebted to the valuable and constant support, help and recognition from CNPq, by means of Chamada CNPq Nº 12/2022 – Programa Editorial, Proc. 405404/2022-0 [Call CNPq 12/2022 – Editorial Program, Process 405404/2022-0], and from PUC-SP by means of Plano de Incentivo a Pesquisa (PIPEq)/ Publicação de Periódicos (PubPer-PUCSP) – 1º semestre de 2023/ Solicitação 26267 [Incentive Research Plan (PIPEq)/ Academic Journal Publication (PubPer-PUCSP) – 1^st Semester of 2023 / Request 26267].

We close the Editorial, reflecting once again on the ChatGPT, now in the words of Eugênio Bucci (ECA-USP):

Some say that Chat should not cause us concern because it is not really a smart thing, it just pretends to be. For those, the artifact gives us the impression of logical coherence, but it cannot really think by itself. Maybe they are right. However, the world is full of people who flaunt the intelligence they do not have. Exactly like GPT. Are they less human?

And here is where we are. With algorithms that speak (and, even worse, listen to), as well as write (and even read), our irrelevance becomes even more undisguised. The machine invites us, humans, to play a supporting role in our own history. And it uses its silicon mouth to talk our heads off (2023).

• 1
  Citation from the article by Fernando Osório in Pesquisa FAPESP [FAPESP Research], March, 2023, p.20.
• 2
  BAKHTIN, Mikhail Mikhailovich; MEDVEDEV, Pavel Nokolaevich. The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship. A Critical Introduction to Sociological Poetics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978 [1928].
• 3
  BAKHTIN, Mikhail Mikhailovich. Art and Answerability. Early Philosophical Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Edited by Michael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov. Translation and Notes by Vadim Liapunov. Supplement Translated by Kenneth Brostrom. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
• FAPESP/Proc.n.2019/20703-2
• Translated by Paulo Rogério Stella – [e-mail]; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4494-6319

REFERÊNCIAS

• ANDRADE, R. O. O universo expandido da inteligência artificial. Pesquisa FAPESP, São Paulo, Ano 24, n.325, p.16-25, março de 2023. Disponível em: https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/016-022_capa-chatgpt_325-Parte-1-2.pdf Acesso em 22 mar. 2023.
  » https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/016-022_capa-chatgpt_325-Parte-1-2.pdf
• BAKHTIN, M. Arte e responsabilidade. In: BAKHTIN, M. Estética da criação verbal Introdução e tradução do russo de Paulo Bezerra. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2006. p.XXXIII-XXXIV.
• BUCCI, E. O algoritmo loquaz. O Estado de S. Paulo São Paulo, A5, 23 de março de 2023.
• COZMAN, F. O Que é o ChatGPT? SEMINÁRIO “ChatGPT: Potencial, Limites e Implicações para a Universidade”, Instituto de Estudos Avançados (IEA), USP, São Paulo, São Paulo, 21 de março de 2023. Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY2aTBeCyJU Acesso em: 21 mar. 2023.
  » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY2aTBeCyJU
• MEDVIÉDEV, P. N. O método formal nos estudos literários Introdução crítica a uma poética sociológica. Trad. Sheila Grillo e Ekaterina Vólkova Américo. São Paulo: Contexto, 2012.
• OSÓRIO, F. In: ANDRADE, R. O. O universo expandido da inteligência artificial. Pesquisa FAPESP, São Paulo, Ano 24, n.325, p.16-25, março de 2023. Disponível em: https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/016-022_capa-chatgpt_325-Parte-1-2.pdf Acesso em 22 mar. 2023.
  » https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/016-022_capa-chatgpt_325-Parte-1-2.pdf
• SEMINÁRIO “ChatGPT: Potencial, Limites e Implicações para a Universidade”, Instituto de Estudos Avançados (IEA), USP, São Paulo, São Paulo, 21 de março de 2023.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  09 May 2023
• Date of issue
  Apr-Jun 2023