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As part of the Spring Symposium at the Wake Forest Humanities Institute, Matt Seybold discusses the present and future of AI speculation, including an extended discussion with Wake Forest faculty, many who were part of WFHI’s Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar on Language, Theory, & Artificial Intelligence.
Cast (in order of appearance): Jennifer Greiman, Matt Seybold, Derek Lee, Michaela Appeltova, Nisrine Rahal, Barry Trachtenberg, Jeff Bills-Solomon, Dean Franco, Amanda Gengler
Date Recorded: April 29, 2026
Music: Danny Weiss Quartet, Moby
Featured Guests
Jennifer Greiman is Professor of English at Wake Forest University and Director of The Humanities Institute there.
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, as well as resident scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies and executive producer of The American Vandal Podcast.
Episode Bibliography
Emily Bender & Alex Hanna, The AI Con (HarperCollins, 2025)
Emily Bender, Timnit Gebru, et al. “On The Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” FAccT 2021
Tressie McMillan Cottom, “The Tech Fantasy That Powers AI is Running on Fumes” The New York Times (April 29, 2025)
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (U California Press, 1984)
Virginia Dignum, The AI Paradox: How To Make Sense of a Complex Future (Princeton UP, 2026)
Ronan Farrow & Andrew Marantz, “Moment of Truth” The New Yorker (April 13, 2026)
Karen Hao, Empire of AI: Dreams & Nigthmares in Sam Altman’s Open AI (Penguin Random House, 2026)
Andy Hines, Outside Literary Studies: Black Criticism & The University (U Chicago Press, 2022)
E. D. Hirsch, Cultural Literacy (Houghton Mifflin, 1987)
Tyler Johnston, “The reporters at this new site are AI bots. OpenAI’s Super PAC appears to be funding it.” Model Republic (April 24, 2026)
Matthew Kirschenbaum, “Grok is an Epistemic Weapon” Tech Policy Press (January 13, 2026)
Matthew Kirschenbaum, “Texpocalypse Now: AI and The New Political Economy of Writing” PennAI (April 17, 2026)
Matthew Kirschenbaum & Rita Raley, “AI & The University as a Service” PMLA (May 2024)
Christopher Newfield, Unmaking The Public University (Harvard UP, 2011)
Britt S. Paris, Radical Infrastructure: Imagining The Internet From The Ground Up (U. California, 2026)
Ann Pettifor, The Global Casino: How Wall Street Gambles with People & The Planet (Verso, 2026)
Ann Pettifor, “The Next Crisis is Coming” Politics Joe (April 1, 2026)
Ann Pettifor, “Is the next financial crisis only a matter of time?” De Balie (February 16, 2026)
Daniel Roher & Charlie Tyrell, The AI Doc, or How I Became An Apocaloptimist (2026)
Matt Seybold, “Against Technofeudal Education” The American Vandal (June 10, 2025)
Matt Seybold, “The Technofeudal Text” The American Vandal (August 25, 2025)
Matt Seybold, “Mamdani Win Could Be The First Step Towards Seizing The Means of Knowledge Production” The American Vandal (November 5, 2025)
Matt Seybold & Eric Hayot, “The ‘Crisis In The Humanities’ Is Over. That’s Not a Good Thing.” Chronicle Of Higher Education (December 29, 2025)
Matt Seybold & John Warner, “The Technology That’s Taking Your Freedom” Academic Freedom On The Line (February 3, 2026)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Secret History of Canvas LMS, Corporate Raiders, & The Chatbot Bubble” The American Vandal (March 24, 2026)
Matt Seybold et al, “HBCUs & The Philanthrocapitalist Swindle” The American Vandal (February 4, 2025)
Jacob Silverman, “The Death of an AI Whistleblower” The Nation (May 2026)
Nick Srnicek, Silicon Empires: The Fight For The Future of AI (Polity, 2026)
Ben Tarnoff, “Frankenstein’s Regret” The Nation (May 2026)
Wake Forest Humanities Institute, “Language, Theory, & Artificial Intelligence” (May 2026)
McKenzie Wark, Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? (Verso, 2019)
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