California Writers Club - Berkeley Branch

AI vs the Author: Writers Grapple with How New Tools Shape Our Future 4/19/26

Sun, Apr 19 · 2:00 PM PDT

Gilman Brewery, 912 Gilman Street, Berkeley, CA, US

### AI, Algorithms and Art: Our Tech-Savviest Authors Discuss our New Sci-Fi Reality

As part of our spring series on the ubiquitous and insistent presence of artificial intelligence, The California Writers Club of Berkeley is thrilled to present a panel discussion around issues that concern us all as writers and citizens.

This month's panel features four deep thinkers, some prolific writers, all of them neurodiverse in different ways, with intellectual abilities computers can only dream of. All of the panelists are writers who have worked in tech, so they bring an insider's take that will illuminate much for users and abdicators alike. We'll focus this panel on conceptions and misconceptions people have about AI and writing, and bring your questions. Ask our panel about using AI, using AI ethically, protecting ourselves from AI, ecological sustainability, AI for disabled or neurodivergent writers, international laws, translation, AI potentially leveling the playing field, taking our jobs away, or homogenizing the literary landscape.

## Meet our Panel

### Thaddeus Howze


Longtime member Thaddeus Howze brings award-winning narrative design experience and decades of intelligence analysis to questions of AI, authorship, and cognitive architecture. His work spans military intelligence, IT leadership, and creative writing across social media and online platforms. He approaches AI not as a tool or threat, but as a shift in the information environment requiring new frameworks for understanding narrative authority, authorship, and the economics of human cognition.
Thaddeus is a veteran of the information technology industry with thirty years of hardware, systems administration, network administration and Internet technology. He's spent the last three years writing essays on varying generative artificial intelligence models, their strengths, their limitations, and why they are not ideal resources in some aspects but potentially useful tools in others.

### Gary Durbin


Gary Durbin had early experience in his tech career with knowledge engineering and natural language, but dove into the technical side building massively parallel systems - what makes the Large Language Models of today's AIs possible. He has had some playtime with some of the LLMs and researching agents, but lately is working on machine learning. Both of his published novels are about the emergence of a sentient AI, and he has written several short stories from the AI POV.

### Leena Prasad


Leena's perspective on AI comes from hands-on experience with earlier forms of the technology, including work as a knowledge engineer on expert systems and natural language processing, and from currently teaching tips and tricks for using today’s generative tools. Having seen AI evolve from rigid, rule-based systems to interactive generative models, she's genuinely excited about the technology. She's especially interested in how these tools can support exploration and thinking, while keeping human judgment, authorship, and creative intent firmly in charge. More context for her AI work lives at WhoseBrainIsIt.com.

## Meet our Moderator

Cristina Deptula is the founder of the Hayward Lit Hop (coming up the week after this panel!), the literary magazine Synchronized Chaos, and the author pr firm, Authors Large and Small. She is passionate about helping the disadvantaged, and well known for moderating panels at conferences such as AWP.

## Schedule

### $5 for members, $10 for guests, free tickets available*

## Community

1:00 Doors open
1:30 Welcome and networking with members & guests

## Program

2:00 p.m. Club Announcements
2:30 p.m. PANEL
4:00 p.m. Author Support Group