Margaret Atwood, unworried by AI, continues prolific writing career

The Manila Times

Margaret Atwood, unworried by AI, continues prolific writing career  Renowned Canadian author Margaret Atwood, who is currently writing her memoir, said in an interview that she is too old to be worried about the rise of artificial intelligence and described herself as still having a "good time" writing.   Atwood, 84, debuted as a poet in 1961 and published her first novel, "The Edible Woman," in 1969. She has since written more than 60 books, including novels, short stories and children's books.   Atwood, spoke with Reuters last week while in Denmark to receive the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, named after the famous 19th-century fairytale writer.   In the interview, Atwood also renewed her previous criticism of Trump, amid his current close presidential race, saying she was very concerned about what she views as his autocratic tendencies.  REUTERS VIDEO   Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe    Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net     Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion    Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital    Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein   #TheManilaTimes #tmtnews  #margaretatwood  #artificialintelligence

Transcript

00:00Well, AI is worrying a lot of people, and again, no, I'm not too worried.

00:07I'm too old to get too worried about this stuff, but if I were 30, I'd be worried,

00:16especially if I were 30 and in the arts, and if I were 30 and in the visual arts.

00:22If I were a graphic designer, I would be worried.

00:26So far, AI is a crap poet, really bad, like worse than people, and it's not a very

00:51good fiction writer, either.

00:55And people say, well, it will improve, but I think, okay, what do you mean by improve?

01:01You will never get an original creator out of AI because it's a data scraper.

01:08It can only use stuff that's been put into it.

01:12There's a writer called Alistair MacLeod who said, writers write about what worries

01:26them, which I think is pretty much true.

01:32So the world situation, as you're probably quite aware, you'd have to be, is unstable,

01:44and I think everyone feels a little tippy.

01:48They feel quite disoriented.

01:51And then you would, in the background, you would see these, you know, these...

01:56If there were an answer to that question, I would only write one.

02:03Yeah, I love people asking me about the future.

02:06It's, what do you have in mind?

02:09The next two years, the next five years, the next 10 years?

02:14Hmm, we don't know.

02:17Well, I'm writing a great honking big memoir right now, and I'm only putting in stupid

02:27things and catastrophes because everything else is boring.

02:32So we don't want to read about, I wrote a book, I wrote another book, I wrote another

02:37book, I wrote another book, and we don't want to read, I had a nice dinner.

02:44I'm a fox.

02:46Shakespeare was a fox, Milton was a cat.

02:49I'm not a writer who exists in a state of misery and finds it terribly difficult to

02:57write.

02:59You can probably guess that by the number of books I've actually written.

03:06Yeah, I'm having a good time.

03:09A film called The Red Shoes, based on his story called The Red Shoes.

Category

Transcript

Recommended