Lecture | "Manufacturing Intelligence" with Dennis Yi Tenen

This lecture is part of the Global Arts + Humanities' Society of Fellows 2025-26 event series, "Artificial Intelligence: Propositions from the Arts + Humanities" — a series of lectures by artists and scholars whose work foregrounds the ethical obligations arising from the simulation of human intelligence and increased surveillance.

Dennis Yi Tenen is an associate professor of English at Columbia University, where he co-directs the Narrative Intelligence Lab. Recent publications include Literary Theory for Robots (W.W. Norton, 2024) and Author Function (forthcoming, Chicago UP). A long-time affiliate of Columbia’s Data Science Institute and former Microsoft engineer and fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Tenen’s code runs on personal computers worldwide. Tenen’s presentation will focus on the changing nature of intellectual production with AI. 

Moderator: Wendy S. Hesford, Director of the Global Arts + Humanities and Professor of English