I’ve been thinking about AI, language models, tokens, and possibilities of new artistic utterances. This brought me back to Deleuze’s famous long-form conversation with Claire Parnet, “Gilles Deleuze from A to Z,” also published as a book. For Deleuze, much like art, philosophy is about the creation of concepts, exploring new possibilities, and opening up new worlds—not imposing rules or reducing philosophy to the mere [formal] clarification of language.

"W as in Wittgenstein"

Parnet: Let's move on to “W”.

Deleuze: There's nothing in “W”.

Parnet: Yes, there's Wittgenstein. I know he's nothing for you, but it's only a word.

Deleuze: I don't like to talk about that... For me, it's a philosophical catastrophe. It's the very example of a "school", it’s a regression of all philosophy, a massive regression. The Wittgenstein matter is quite sad. They imposed (ils ont foutu) a system of terror in which, under the pretext of doing something new, it's poverty instituted in all grandeur (c’est la pauvreté instaurée en grandeur)… There isn't a word to describe this danger, but this danger is one that recurs, it's not the first time that it has happened. It’s serious, especially since the Wittgensteinians are mean (méchants) and destructive (ils cassent tout). So in this, there could be an assassination of philosophy. They are assassins of philosophy.

Parnet: It’s serious, then.

Deleuze: Yes… One must remain very vigilant. [Deleuze laughs]