Phase 2.1 — Literature Review & Positioning

Status: Not started — Target: Weeks 3–10

Objective

Survey existing work at the intersection of psychoanalysis and AI, identify the specific gap this project fills, and position the project within the broader scholarly landscape.

Domain 1: Psychoanalysis and Cybernetics/Computation

Key texts:

• Lacan, The Seminar, Book II: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis (1954–55)
• Lydia Liu, The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Unconscious (2010)

Notes:

Relevance to this project:

Domain 2: Nonconscious Cognition in Technical Systems

Key texts:

• Katherine Hayles, Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious (2017)

Notes:

Relevance to this project:

Domain 3: Critical Theory and Machine Learning

Key texts:

• Matteo Pasquinelli, The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence (2023)

Notes:

Relevance to this project:

Domain 4: Psychoanalysis and AI (Direct Engagements)

Key texts:

• Luca Possati, various publications on “machine psychoanalysis”
• Slavoj Žižek, various texts engaging AI from a Lacanian perspective

Notes:

Relevance to this project:

Domain 5: Philosophy of Language and LLMs

Key texts:

• Murray Shanahan, “Talking About Large Language Models” (2024)
• Emily Bender et al., “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots” (2021)

Notes:

Relevance to this project:

Domain 6: Plasticity and Non-Subjective Structure

Key texts:

• Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain? (2004)

Notes:

Relevance to this project:

The Gap

Almost no existing work takes the specific claim that transformer operations instantiate the formal processes Lacan described and tests it with both psychoanalytic rigor and computational specificity.

What existing work does well:

What existing work misses:

This project’s unique contribution:

Annotated Bibliography

Full annotated bibliography to be compiled during reading.