This talk anchors recent advances in machine intelligence within the broader history of collective labor. Rather than treating generative AI as a break with humanistic traditions, Dr. Tenen argues that it emerges from the rationalization and coordination of creative work across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on writers' manuals, plot compendia, and early efforts to formalize narrative production, the talk will show how fiction in particular became organized as a cooperative enterprise rather than the expression of individual genius. Brief case studies from the history of serial fiction and machine translation will illustrate the development of collective authorship in practice.