Can the James Baldwin Typebot Tell Us the Meaning of Life?

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A man stands in front of the Djingareyber mosque on February 4, 2016 in Timbuktu, central Mali.
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October 29, 2025

Frank Rose, New York Times

Courtesy of New York Times – Approximations of Baldwin’s furniture are scattered around the exhibit, and a conversation he had with Nikki Giovanni plays on an endless loop.

In the financial district of Manhattan, an A.I.-equipped typewriter, fueled by James Baldwin’s works, types back at you with answers to your questions. Not just any typewriter: This one has been souped up to the point that if you type in a question, it types out a response, using artificial intelligence to direct you to relevant quotations from the work of the writer James Baldwin, one of 20th-century America’s most acute observers.

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