Are you overwhelmed? 

It feels like there is an unimaginable and unprecedented amount of information in the world right now. This “information overload,” as it has been called, is a primary motivator for the development and popularization of artificial intelligence—algorithms that can gather, synthesize, and curate information. And yet, large language models and other forms of generative AI introduce new formations of text, new choices to make, and new information to master, making information overload both the cause and effect of artificial intelligence. 

This project contextualizes AI in a lineage of information organizing technologies like the encyclopedia, the library, the printing press, and the computer—technologies that were also motivated by a desire to curate, control, and preserve information but that subsequently exacerbated feelings of information overload. Finally, this project locates apocalyptic visions of AI within this historical pattern, arguing that when there’s too much information, fears about understanding and preserving the world can lead to existential anxieties about the disorganized future.