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Margaret Atwood Says AI ‘Lied’ to Her After Her First Experience Using Chatbot
Margaret Atwood has shared her thoughts on artificial intelligence after revealing she has only used an AI chatbot once—and the experience left her unimpressed.
Speaking during a career Q&A at the inaugural Babell Literary and Cultural Festival in Porto, Portugal, the acclaimed Canadian author said she turned to Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude for a very unexpected reason.
AI couldn’t answer her TV question
Rather than using AI to help with her writing, Atwood said she simply wanted to learn the ending of the British detective series Father Brown.
Instead, she received an incorrect answer.
“Claude gave me the wrong answer, or it lied,” Atwood said. “Of course, it didn’t know it was lying because it’s not a human being; it’s a large language model.”
She explained that the chatbot had likely relied on television reviews, which typically avoid revealing major plot twists.
“It had skimmed and sampled a lot of television reviews, but they never give away the ending… so it was misled by the things it had read about the show.”
‘Garbage in, garbage out’
Atwood said the experience reinforced her belief that AI-generated information should never be accepted without verification.
“The thing about AI is that it’s garbage in, garbage out,” she said.
She added that even businesses using AI must carefully fact-check its output because it remains prone to mistakes.
“Human beings are not robots, but they are opportunists, so if there’s an easy way to cheat and it’s hard to detect, people will do it,” Atwood said.
On book bans and censorship
The conversation also touched on censorship, an issue Atwood has faced throughout her career.
Her novel The Handmaid’s Tale has frequently appeared on lists of the most challenged and banned books in U.S. schools.
Asked about the bans, Atwood joked:
“It’s a good sales gimmick. Don’t read this book. It’s too hot to read.”
She added that readers often become even more curious after hearing a book has been banned.
Concerns about political censorship
Atwood also expressed concern about the current political climate in the United States, arguing that efforts to suppress political dissent should be watched carefully.
She said she believes attempts to silence opposing views can become warning signs for democratic societies, while also noting that new independent media outlets continue to emerge as alternatives to traditional platforms.
When asked to name her favorite book that she has written, Atwood declined to choose just one.
“I never make such choices because the others will hear about it and they’ll get their revenge,” she joked.
