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Code as Medium
1.3 Misreading as Material

Session 1 · Tool Lab · Lesson 03

Misreading as Material

AI collapses ambiguity, invents narrative, and exaggerates pattern. Error reveals bias. Misinterpretation becomes meaning.

Concept

  • Four failure modes: narrative drift, spatial confusion, affective mismatch, semantic collapse.
  • What the model insists the image 'is' tells you what it was trained to expect.
  • The stakes are conceptual: authorship, intention, truth, and evidence.

When the machine gets it wrong, what does the error reveal?

Slides

  1. 09

    Misreading as Material

    • AI collapses ambiguity
    • AI invents narrative
    • AI exaggerates pattern
    • Error reveals bias
    • Misinterpretation becomes meaning
  2. 12

    Case Studies of Misreading

    • Narrative drift
    • Spatial confusion
    • Affective mismatch
    • Semantic collapse
    • What the model insists the image “is”
  3. 13

    Conceptual Stakes

    • Who authors meaning?
    • Where does intention end?
    • What remains photographic?
    • What happens to truth and evidence?

Student activity

20:00
  1. 01Collect one machine misreading of your own image and classify its failure mode.
  1. Claim 01
    Verdict