THE AUTHOR IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:

Abstract

The rapid emergence of generative artificial intelligence has reignited debates surrounding authorship, creativity, and textual production in contemporary literary studies. This paper revisits Roland Barthes' seminal essay The Death of the Author (1967) in light of AI-generated texts, examining whether artificial intelligence confirms, challenges, or transforms Barthes' conception of authorship. Barthes argued that the meaning of a text should not be determined by the intentions or identity of its author but by the active role of the reader in interpretation. The rise of AI writing systems complicates traditional notions of authorship by introducing new agents into the creative process, including algorithms, developers, training datasets, and users who provide prompts. Drawing on Barthes' theory alongside contemporary discussions of digital authorship, this study explores how AI-generated literature destabilizes the idea of a singular author and reconfigures the relationship between writer, text, and reader. Through a theoretical and critical analysis, the paper argues that while generative AI appears to reinforce Barthes' claim that the author is no longer the sole source of meaning, it also reveals new forms of distributed and collaborative authorship. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that the age of artificial intelligence does not signal the disappearance of the author but rather a transformation of authorship itself, raising important questions about creativity, originality, and literary interpretation in the digital era.