Rethinking Ethical Identity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Ethical identity, as one of the core terms of Ethical Literary Criticism, is different from the personality identity in the traditional Western metaphysical philosophy, nor from the identity in the Western cultural studies. The age of AI is reshaping our understanding of ethical identity across various domains, including literature. The rise of AI in literary creation raises questions about the ethical identity of both authors and readers. These questions challenge the boundaries of authorship and creativity, prompting a reevaluation of what it means to be an author in the digital age. Similarly, with the popularization of AI-generated contents, readers may need to develop new skills to critically engage with texts, discerning between human and machine-generated narratives. This shift requires readers to adopt a more active role in interpreting and understanding literature, potentially reshaping their ethical identity as participants in the literary process. The writer would have to become a craftsman or a mixer, mediator or gatekeeper of the resulting artificial work. The traditonal concept "reader" is shifted to co-producer or a "prosumer." As AI technologies continue to evolve, they challenge traditional notions of identity, agency, and creativity, prompting us to rethink our ethical frameworks and responsibilities.