Northwestern Hosts Symposium on Generative AI and Literary Authority

Northwestern University hosts Intelligence Humanities: Authorship, Auctoritas, and Generative AI, a one-day symposium examining how generative AI is reshaping literary creation and the conditions under which knowledge gains authority. As AI systems write with increasing fluency, the symposium asks who holds the authority to recognize intelligence in a text, interpret its meaning, and determine when a generated piece of writing becomes knowledge or literature, rather than output without responsibility.

Scholars, writers, artists, and researchers from Africa, Europe, and North America will take part across sessions held in both English and French, bringing together humanistic inquiry with artistic practice and research into the political and material infrastructures underlying AI. The day concludes with the Klopsteg Lecture, delivered by Lauren M. E. Goodlad, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University and editor of the journal Critical AI.

The event is free and open to faculty, students, staff, and the public, with a reception to follow.

The symposium is co-presented by Northwestern’s Department of French and Italian and the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, through its HumAIn: Being Human in the Age of AI initiative. It is supported by the Weinberg College Dean’s Office, the Northwestern Network for Collaborative Intelligence, Villa Albertine Chicago / the Embassy of France, and the Office of the Provost through the Klopsteg Fund.