The Big Idea: Ada Hoffman

When it comes down to it, all humanity really has at the end of the day is our stories. Telling stories around the fire is a tale as old as humans themselves, and author Ada Hoffman expresses the importance of these stories, and the importance of being human, in the Big Idea for their newest novel, Ignore All Previous Instructions. ADA HOFFMAN: When I tell people the premise of Ignore All Previous Instructions, they often remark how it reminds them of real life these days. In Ignore, the characters live in a space colony on Callisto where a generative AI company owns everything – and where making art or telling stories, without the AI’s assistance, is strictly not allowed. Certainly there are parallels between this dystopian premise and my life in 2026 – working as an adjunct for a university computer science department where the people in charge keep yelling about the “pivot to AI” and how terrible it will be if we don’t all get on board. But I wrote Ignore in 2023. Publishing is…