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Margaret Atwood on what AI can’t replace | ReThinking with Adam Grant

Margaret Atwood is best known as the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, and she’s won a slew of awards for her novels, poetry collections, and children’s books. Now, at the age of 86, she’s written her first memoir, The Book of Lives. In this episode, Adam and Margaret break down her perspective on what creative jobs AI will and won’t threaten and discuss the evidence on the benefits of reading banned books. They also muse about why heroes need monsters and what it means to be delightfully disagreeable. Host & Guest Adam Grant (Instagram: @adamgrant | LinkedIn: @adammgrant | Website: https://adamgrant.net/) Margaret Atwood (Instagram: @therealmargaretatwood | Website: https://margaretatwood.ca/) Links https://margaretatwood.substack.com/ Join us in person at a TED conference: https://tedtalks.social/events Become a TED Member to support our mission: https://ted.com/membership Subscribe to a TED newsletter: https://ted.com/newsletters Follow TED! X: https://www.twitter.com/TEDTalks Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ted Facebook: https://facebook.com/TED LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ted-conferences TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tedtoks Podcasts: https://www.ted.com/podcasts The TED Audio Collective is a collection of podcasts for the curious. The TED Audio Collective videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (https://www.ted.com/about/our-organiz...). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com.

Adam GranthostMargaret Atwoodguest
Dec 19, 202543mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Atwood on AI, originality, memoir-making, and resisting censorship pressures today

  1. Atwood argues current AI is good at formula and pastiche but lacks genuine originality, coherent plotting, and convincing inner life for characters.
  2. She reframes so-called AI “hallucinations” as simple machine errors and critiques the tech industry’s tendency to anthropomorphize AI.
  3. Atwood explains why she refuses to use AI to write, while acknowledging narrow “adjacent” uses (definitions, thesaurus-like help) and warning it’s unreliable for facts and mapping.
  4. The conversation shifts to Atwood’s memoir mindset—memoir as remembered experience rather than exhaustive autobiography—and how painful events can become meaningful stories over time.
  5. They discuss censorship dynamics, where book bans often backfire by increasing interest, and Atwood connects robust reading cultures (libraries, librarians) with better educational outcomes and civic engagement.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

AI can imitate style, but it struggles with what makes novels “novel.”

Atwood sees AI as competent at remixing formulas and producing passable schlock or pastiche, but not at sustaining original voice, plotting, and especially believable inner life.

Calling AI mistakes “hallucinations” is rhetorical, not descriptive.

She argues the term is used to make AI sound human; machines don’t experience perception or emotion, they just output wrong information.

If a system can’t be trusted on facts, you must constrain it aggressively.

Her examples (wrong supermarket location; absurd snakes/floor image) illustrate that prompt specificity and verification are mandatory, not optional.

The biggest AI risk isn’t replacing novelists—it’s weaponizing perception.

Atwood flags deepfakes and political propaganda as more consequential than AI-generated fiction, because they can distort shared reality at scale.

Memoir is curated memory, not comprehensive life accounting.

She distinguishes memoir from autobiography: the point is what you remember (often catastrophes, near-death experiences, and vivid “stupid things”), not an itinerary.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

That's because they want to make AI sound human. So humans have hallucinations. Um, machines don't. They just make mistakes.

— Margaret Atwood

I think it's mo- the most important thing about it is its ability to create deep fakes for political propaganda purposes.

— Margaret Atwood

So what you remember is usually stupid things you did, uh, stupid and evil things other people did to you. Not so much the evil things you did to other people. You tend to forget those.

— Margaret Atwood

...the power of those people is dependent on your believing that they have that power.

— Margaret Atwood

"Pray, uh, that you will never have the opportunity to be a hero."

— Margaret Atwood

AI vs original literary voicePastiche, imitation, and authorial styleAI “hallucinations” vs errorsCharacter inner life and plot as novelistic essentialsMemoir vs autobiography; memory’s selectivityBullying, power, and letting go vs revengeBook bans, libraries, and unintended consequences

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