AI Narrative Criticism: Reimagining Meaning, Power, and Storytelling in the Algorithmic Age

Abstract

This article introduces AI Narrative Criticism as a critical methodology for interpreting stories about, by, and through artificial intelligence in the algorithmic age. It argues that AI systems no longer serve merely as tools of communication but operate as narrative apparatuses that generate, curate, and structure meaning across cultural, literary, and digital domains. Building on poststructuralist narratology, posthuman theory, and critical media studies, the paper outlines three analytic registers: (1) narratives about AI in cultural and policy discourse that project fantasies and anxieties; (2) narratives by AI, such as large language model outputs that demand reconceptualisations of authorship and textuality, and (3) narratives through AI, shaped by algorithmic recommendation systems that structure attention, perception, and affect. Through case studies ranging from speculative fiction and machine-generated writing to platform-curated feeds, the article demonstrates how machinic narrativity unsettles traditional assumptions of intention, coherence, and human-centered authorship. To engage these transformations, the paper proposes a framework for reading AI-mediated storytelling through four methodological coordinates; contextual mapping, discursive reading, aesthetic analysis, and ethical reflexivity. The study concludes that in the age of narrative automation, literary criticism must reinvent itself to confront the aesthetic, epistemic, and political implications of machine-mediated storytelling.