TEDxAsburyPark, Oct 7, 2026 at Triumph Stage, Red Bank, NJ.
Rick Smolan has spent five decades exploring the boundary between reality and representation: first as a photojournalist for Time, Life, and National Geographic; then as creator of the bestselling Day in the Life series; and now as an engaged observer of AI’s effect on storytelling. On October 7, he brings his hard-won, life-long perspective to TEDxAsburyPark.
Rick Smolan: Storytelling in the Age of AI
Smolan resists being called an artist. “I don’t feel like I’m an artist or that I’ve been creating art. I feel more like a storyteller.” For him, photojournalism begins with “humanity” as the canvas—and the storyteller’s job is to find meaning within it.
That role has become more complicated. “It’s becoming almost impossible to tell what’s real and what isn’t,” Smolan says. “All of us are now starting to doubt what we’re seeing.” From synthetic news imagery to AI-generated animal videos, he sees a rising crisis of visual trust.
Yet he is not a technology pessimist. “My approach is dive in with both feet and see how it works,” he says. AI may threaten parts of photography, but it can also return time to creators by handling metadata, restoration, and other labor-intensive tasks.
On reclaiming randomness
In an algorithm-driven world, Smolan pushes back by reading an actual newspaper. “I still read the physical newspaper. I’m like the only guy in a coffee shop now actually reading a physical paper… I read things I wouldn’t have chosen to read. Give me 10% of things that don’t fit into my algorithm at all.”
“Huxley said the danger is that we’re going to be amused to death… George Orwell said we’ll be lied into submission. Today both are happening.”
“I keep wondering if AI is actually biologically driven, as opposed to technologically driven… Are we turning into a single biological mind? Maybe this is inevitably what happens with evolution.”
“I’ve been fortunate as a photojournalist to be starting with humanity as my canvas, and then basically editing humanity in a way.”
Smolan’s next project, an adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky, continues his lifelong work: using emerging media to tell consequential human stories.
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