Paper short abstract:

GenAI proposes a new digital information system of concealment, reversing trends of revelation that were normalised with the Googlization of the world. Information concealment is often read as an act of political emergency but I re-read it as an act of queer authoring from an 'Asian' context.

Paper long abstract:

The establishment of search as the de facto logic of organising digital information networks, foregrounded 'revealing' as one of the most prominent and singular focus of digital authorship. To be a digital author was to reveal - from outing narratives to whistleblowing. The radical emphasis on transparency and revelation resulted in any form of information withholding - censorship, redaction, information shaping, blackouts, or shutdowns - being seen as an act of political emergency. This paper argues that GenAI is destabilising this stronghold of revelation, and replacing it with concealment as a new form of digital authorship. This concealment is not just act or erasure of information but of new modes of informational expression, sharing, and exchange. I unpack and re-read this concealment - what the GenAI does not show or reveal in its informational models as embedded in three different histories and imaginaries of concealment in the 'Asian' context - Queerness, public authorship, and practices of detection. Drawing from historical imaginaries and practices in India, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, I offer a different way of understanding GenAI emergence as a moment to imagine future affordances and safeguards that are still waiting to be imagined.