Reese Witherspoon is hyping A.I. again, and American authors have just a few ideas.
The Oscar-winning actor and producer, known for spotlighting women’s voices through her famed book club, television and screen projects, might have been barking up the incorrect tree when she told her social media followers that it was time to learn A.I. on Wednesday.
“Well…I’ve decided it’s TIME,” she wrote within the caption of an Instagram reel on Wednesday. “The AI revolution has begun, and I need to learn as much as I possibly can about AI and share it with all of you. Also, FYI: the jobs women hold are 3x more likely to be automated by AI, yet women are using AI at a rate 25% lower than men on average. We don’t want to be left behind. So…do you want to learn with me?”
In the video, which the star shared throughout social media platforms, Witherspoon mentioned she was with 10 ladies at a guide membership this week. “I said to the 10 of them, ‘How many of you guys use AI?’ And only three of them used AI. And then I said, ‘How many of the three of you feel like you really know what you’re doing or using it the right way?’ And there was only one person,” she mentioned.
“So, if three out of 10 women are the only ones using AI, that means 70% of that group is not keeping up. The thing I’ve learned about technology is if you don’t get a little bit of understanding from the very beginning, it just speeds past you. So you have to have little bits of learning just to keep up.”
The “Big Little Lies” star then seemingly put out a feeler for an A.I. studying course saying, “I think we should learn the basics together and learn some really good tools that are going to make our everyday lives easier and better. Do you want me to share what I’m learning with you?”
While there have been loads of feedback from fans and stars hyping up Witherspoon’s sentiment — Former co-stars Ali Larter mentioned “Yes yes yes!” and Kerry Washington mentioned “THIS” — lots of the replies referred to as the actor out, citing environmental, economic, social, educational and intellectual issues, amongst others.
One group that was particularly vocal of their opposition to A.I., was the literary group, and writers and authors throughout the nation didn’t maintain again when sharing their two cents.
Bestselling “Bad Feminist” creator Roxane Gay chimed in on Threads, writing, “Oh Reese. Absolutely not.”
“This is obviously a scripted ad and it’s genuinely infuriating. Notice how AI’s biggest defenders are the ones cashing checks from it,” wrote screenwriter and director Charlene Bagcal on Threads. “AI isn’t inevitable. Technology follows society. If people stop using it, it dies. We still have agency.”
“Jagged Little Pill” creator and literary agent Eric Smith weighed in, “As someone who champions authors and books the way you do, this is so disappointing.”
“AI plagiarized all my books. It seems unlikely that I’ll be ‘left behind’ if I don’t use it, given that it’s trained on work I did years ago,” wrote “Get Well Soon” creator Jennifer Wright.
Writer and actor Rati Gupta mentioned, “How am *I* the one being “left behind” by not utilizing AI when *my* cognitive perform will stay totally intact and uncompromised?”
And Sophia Benoit posted, “There’s something particularly insidious about seeing that women— the group you have built your brand on— have not adopted something and instead of assuming it’s out of wisdom, infantalizing them with ‘we’re falling behind.’”
In 2021, Witherspoon’s firm, Hello Sunshine, partnered with World of Women (WoW), an NFT collective, and the actor equally caught flak from followers for tweeting “In the (near) future, every person will have a parallel digital identity. Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this?”
Representatives for Witherspoon haven’t responded to the Times request for remark.
