Public Intellectuals Is it a work-saving device? In this context, I think that’s beside the point. It can be a work-elevating device. Seventy years ago, while in exile from Nazi Germany, the hugely influential polymath Theodor Adorno wrote8 (using terms strik- ingly similar to Calvino’s Neanderthal) that “blind play with means can pose and develop ends.” The AI-generated “possible interviews” below aim to demonstrate the breadth, depth, and deftness of GPT-4’s outputs (even within a constrained average maximum limit of 900 tokens for prompt and response) on some themes of typical relevance to public discourse, including the central role of technologies in shaping the very notion of “the public” in its varied forms, and what the Black lesbian poet and activist Audre Lorde called “who pays what for speaking.”9 Each of the interviews is one of typically a dozen variations that GPT-4 generated from similar prompts, with each genera- tion producing different turns of phrase and concatenations of insights. Experts on the work of these public intellectuals will recognize some things in the outputs that make them nod, and other things that make them go, “Hmm . . . .” These are “possi- ble” interviews because they are probabilistic, not authoritative. Public discourse is a perpetual work in progress. Now that we have a new tool to help in that work, let’s see some examples of what that tool can do.10 Reid: Write an interview between [20th-century. Amer- ican political theorist] Iris Marion Young and [20th-cen- tury German social theorist] Jurgen Habermas about 8 In his essay, “Aldous Huxley and Utopia” (1942). 9 In her most anthologized poem, “Coal” (1968). 10 For each dialogue, I’ve added [brief descriptions of the participants] that were not in my original prompts. 167