Artificial intelligence is described as a technological revolution that is transforming our world. Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood has a somewhat simpler way of looking at it.
She compares AI to a knife. A paring knife actually.
“It’s got a good side. It’s got a bad side. And it’s got a stupid side you didn’t anticipate,” Atwood told an audience at the Energy Disruptors: UNITE 2026 conference in Calgary this week.
A paring knife can be used to slice apples to make applesauce, become a deadly weapon in the wrong hands, or accidentally cut your finger. AI, she argues, is another human invention whose consequences depend on how people choose to use it — and what happens when things don’t go as planned.
“We made it,” Atwood said, emphasizing that AI is a human tool rather than something beyond our responsibility.
The two-time Booker Prize-winning author was speaking with Holly Ransom, Co-Founder and Host of the Energy Disruptors conference, during a fireside chat held at the BMO Centre. The two-day event brought together nearly 3,000 business leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs to discuss the intersection of energy and technology.
The 86-year-old Atwood may seem an unconventional speaker at such an event, but her work has long explored the relationship between technological change, human behaviour, and the exercise of power.
The author of more than 50 books, including The Handmaid’s Tale and its Booker Prize-winning sequel The Testaments, Atwood has spent decades imagining societies shaped by choices made in the present. She describes much of her work as speculative fiction, drawing on history and existing developments to explore what the future might hold.
That perspective makes her observations particularly relevant as AI becomes increasingly embedded in everyday life.
When AI Gets the Story Wrong
Atwood offered a humorous example of the technology’s limitations, recounting a recent chat she had with Claude, the AI assistant developed by Anthropic.
She had been trying to identify the real murderer in an episode of the television series Father Brown. Unable to remember the answer, she turned to Claude for help.
Unfortunately, Claude didn’t know either.
Instead, it provided the name of the character who had been presented as the likely suspect — the very red herring Atwood already knew was innocent.
The exchange led to a longer conversation about what Claude could and couldn’t do, including its inability, in the version she was using, to watch the television episode directly.
Atwood even asked the assistant about the origins of its name, leading to some playful speculation between Atwood and Claude about whether it might have been named after the title character in I, Claudius. (As it turns out, Claude is named after Claude Shannon, a mathematician considered the architect of the Information Age.)
The anecdote illustrated a serious issue: AI can produce convincing responses without necessarily having the information needed to answer a question correctly.
The Power of Information and Storytelling
For Atwood, AI is also part of a much longer history of human attempts to shape information and influence how people understand the world.
She noted that societies have always used storytelling, imagery, and symbols to communicate ideas and to establish authority. AI adds another powerful tool to that process, particularly through its ability to create and distribute information.
But she argued that the underlying human capacity to tell stories remains fundamentally important. Atwood pointed to speech, storytelling, music, and artistic expression as capabilities that emerge remarkably early in childhood.
Speech, she suggested, is probably the most powerful tool humans have ever developed.
Like AI, however, storytelling is not inherently beneficial or harmful. Its consequences depend on how it is used.
Critical Thinking in the AI Age
Atwood’s advice to an audience of business and technology leaders was ultimately grounded in pragmatism.
Rather than accepting information at face value, she encouraged people to examine the evidence behind what they are being told, where ideas originate, and whether claims can be trusted.
She also emphasized the importance of being prepared to challenge information that is demonstrably false.
The message applies particularly well to a world where AI-generated material is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from authentic human communication.
Despite the risks she identified, Atwood did not present technology or the future as something to fear.
She told the audience that people still have the ability to influence what happens next. AI may become an extraordinarily powerful tool, but humans remain responsible for deciding how to use it — and for recognizing when it has led them astray.
It’s a message likely to stay with the business leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs who gathered in Calgary: building the technology is only half the challenge. Choosing how to use it will be the other.
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