Overview

• Rushdie argued at the Hay Festival that AI lacks a genuine sense of humor and won’t displace authors until it can write truly funny content.
• He confirmed he has never used AI in his work and prefers to ignore its existence during his first major UK appearance since the 2022 stabbing.
• Hadi Matar was convicted and given a 25-year prison sentence last month for the attack that left Rushdie blind in one eye.
• Rushdie is touring to promote his new short story collection, The Eleventh Hour, which he discussed alongside his AI commentary.
• Authors continue to demand transparency and compensation from tech companies over the use of copyrighted texts to train AI models.