Infinity Book: Speculating Literary Expressions in the Age of Generative AI

Jussi Holopainen; Yuxuan Huang; Joongi Shin; Erkka Nissinen; Andrés Lucero

doi:10.1145/3715336.3735735

Infinity Book: Speculating Literary Expressions in the Age of Generative AI

Jussi Holopainen^*
, Yuxuan Huang
, Joongi Shin
, Erkka Nissinen
, Andrés Lucero

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Creative Media

Research output: Chapters, Conference Papers, Creative and Literary Works › RGC 32 - Refereed conference paper (with host publication) › peer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

15 Downloads (CityUHK Scholars)

Abstract

This paper explores the ethical, social, political, and philosophical implications of generative AI (GenAI) on human creativity, contributing to the current discussions on the impact of AI. We use speculative and critical design as our approach to avoid abstract guesswork and provide more nuanced and concrete insights into the matter at hand. We conducted five speculative design workshops centered on Infinity Book, a fictional system capable of generating any kind of literary work. Participants used brainwriting, the Future Ripples method, and dialogue-labs to explore potential futures and socio-material impacts of such technology. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was employed to analyze the results from the workshops, and we developed twelve design fictions that illustrate diverse uses and societal implications of GenAI. Based on these results, we formulated three strong concepts, Authenticity, Creative Agency, and Liveness, that link concrete design considerations with broader philosophical discussions. © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).

Original language	English
Title of host publication	DIS '25
Subtitle of host publication	Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
Editors	Nuno Jardim Nunes, Valentina Nisi, Ian Oakley, Qian Yang, Clement Zheng
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Pages	1430-1454
ISBN (Electronic)	979-8-4007-1485-6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735735
Publication status	Published - 4 Jul 2025
Event	ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2025 - Funchal, Madeira, Portugal Duration: 5 Jul 2025 → 9 Jul 2025 https://dis.acm.org/2025/

Conference

Conference	ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2025
Abbreviated title	DIS'25
Place	Portugal
City	Madeira
Period	5/07/25 → 9/07/25
Internet address	https://dis.acm.org/2025/

Bibliographical note

Research Unit(s) information for this publication is provided by the author(s) concerned.

Research Keywords

speculative design
generative AI
literary expression

Publisher's Copyright Statement

This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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10.1145/3715336.3735735

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Holopainen, J., Huang, Y., Shin, J., Nissinen, E., & Lucero, A. (2025). Infinity Book: Speculating Literary Expressions in the Age of Generative AI. In N. J. Nunes, V. Nisi, I. Oakley, Q. Yang, & C. Zheng (Eds.), DIS '25: Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (pp. 1430-1454). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735735

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title = "Infinity Book: Speculating Literary Expressions in the Age of Generative AI",

abstract = "This paper explores the ethical, social, political, and philosophical implications of generative AI (GenAI) on human creativity, contributing to the current discussions on the impact of AI. We use speculative and critical design as our approach to avoid abstract guesswork and provide more nuanced and concrete insights into the matter at hand. We conducted five speculative design workshops centered on Infinity Book, a fictional system capable of generating any kind of literary work. Participants used brainwriting, the Future Ripples method, and dialogue-labs to explore potential futures and socio-material impacts of such technology. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was employed to analyze the results from the workshops, and we developed twelve design fictions that illustrate diverse uses and societal implications of GenAI. Based on these results, we formulated three strong concepts, Authenticity, Creative Agency, and Liveness, that link concrete design considerations with broader philosophical discussions. {\textcopyright} 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).",

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author = "Jussi Holopainen and Yuxuan Huang and Joongi Shin and Erkka Nissinen and Andr{\'e}s Lucero",

note = "Research Unit(s) information for this publication is provided by the author(s) concerned. ; ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2025, DIS'25 ; Conference date: 05-07-2025 Through 09-07-2025",

year = "2025",

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Holopainen, J , Huang, Y, Shin, J, Nissinen, E & Lucero, A 2025, Infinity Book: Speculating Literary Expressions in the Age of Generative AI. in NJ Nunes, V Nisi, I Oakley, Q Yang & C Zheng (eds), DIS '25: Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference. Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 1430-1454, ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2025, Madeira, Portugal, 5/07/25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735735

Infinity Book: Speculating Literary Expressions in the Age of Generative AI. / Holopainen, Jussi ; Huang, Yuxuan; Shin, Joongi et al.
DIS '25: Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference. ed. / Nuno Jardim Nunes; Valentina Nisi; Ian Oakley; Qian Yang; Clement Zheng. Association for Computing Machinery, 2025. p. 1430-1454.

Research output: Chapters, Conference Papers, Creative and Literary Works › RGC 32 - Refereed conference paper (with host publication) › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Infinity Book

T2 - ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2025

AU - Holopainen, Jussi

AU - Huang, Yuxuan

AU - Shin, Joongi

AU - Nissinen, Erkka

AU - Lucero, Andrés

N1 - Research Unit(s) information for this publication is provided by the author(s) concerned.

PY - 2025/7/4

Y1 - 2025/7/4

N2 - This paper explores the ethical, social, political, and philosophical implications of generative AI (GenAI) on human creativity, contributing to the current discussions on the impact of AI. We use speculative and critical design as our approach to avoid abstract guesswork and provide more nuanced and concrete insights into the matter at hand. We conducted five speculative design workshops centered on Infinity Book, a fictional system capable of generating any kind of literary work. Participants used brainwriting, the Future Ripples method, and dialogue-labs to explore potential futures and socio-material impacts of such technology. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was employed to analyze the results from the workshops, and we developed twelve design fictions that illustrate diverse uses and societal implications of GenAI. Based on these results, we formulated three strong concepts, Authenticity, Creative Agency, and Liveness, that link concrete design considerations with broader philosophical discussions. © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).

AB - This paper explores the ethical, social, political, and philosophical implications of generative AI (GenAI) on human creativity, contributing to the current discussions on the impact of AI. We use speculative and critical design as our approach to avoid abstract guesswork and provide more nuanced and concrete insights into the matter at hand. We conducted five speculative design workshops centered on Infinity Book, a fictional system capable of generating any kind of literary work. Participants used brainwriting, the Future Ripples method, and dialogue-labs to explore potential futures and socio-material impacts of such technology. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was employed to analyze the results from the workshops, and we developed twelve design fictions that illustrate diverse uses and societal implications of GenAI. Based on these results, we formulated three strong concepts, Authenticity, Creative Agency, and Liveness, that link concrete design considerations with broader philosophical discussions. © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).

KW - speculative design

KW - generative AI

KW - literary expression

U2 - 10.1145/3715336.3735735

DO - 10.1145/3715336.3735735

M3 - RGC 32 - Refereed conference paper (with host publication)

SP - 1430

EP - 1454

BT - DIS '25

A2 - Nunes, Nuno Jardim

A2 - Nisi, Valentina

A2 - Oakley, Ian

A2 - Yang, Qian

A2 - Zheng, Clement

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

Y2 - 5 July 2025 through 9 July 2025

ER -

Infinity Book: Speculating Literary Expressions in the Age of Generative AI

Abstract

Conference

Bibliographical note

Research Keywords

Publisher's Copyright Statement

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