Reese Witherspoon, for one, welcomes our new A.I. overlords
"It's here to stay, so just get used to it," the aspirational icon told an audience at PaleyFest this weekend
Famous NFT proponent Reese Witherspoon—better known for other work—has some advice for people worried about the inevitable and crushing intrusion of technology into their lives of late, telling anyone nervous about artificial intelligence’s ongoing effects on humanity that they should, in essence, suck it up, Buttercup. “It’s here to stay, so just get used to it,” Witherspoon told an audience at PaleyFest in Hollywood this weekend, expressing that boundless optimism and cheer for which she is so memorably known.
Witherspoon, who was hanging out on stage with her Morning Show collaborator Jennifer Aniston, took a line on A.I. very similar to one that she used to tout on NFTs, i.e., if terrible, destructive technologies have to exist, shouldn’t we have more women and people of color making money off of them?
Here’s Witherspoon, laying out the ethos:
I think AI is not coming for your job; people who know how to use AI are coming for your job. So learn about it. It should be a tool upon which we lay our own creativity, our own humanity and our own ethics. That’s a whole conversation — for women and people of color and people who are othered sometimes in those developmental spaces really need to get in there… let’s not be scared of it, let’s dive in.
(Meanwhile, here’s Witherspoon back in 2022, when she announced her Hello Sunshine production company was partnering with NFT brand World Of Women for a “storytelling partnership” that never actually produced anything, as far as we can tell: “While the crypto and NFT space is largely dominated by men, there are inspiring leaders like World of Women creating incredible communities for women during this massive shift for media and technology.” Like basically all NFTs, World Of Women has fallen to a fraction of its former value over the last two years, after a massive shift in market forces made everybody realize that crypto was objectively embarrassing and also kind of dumb.)
Honestly, it all feels a bit like gilding the lily, to us; it’s not like, when the Metal Revolution comes, the A.I. robots were going to kill Reese Witherspoon, of all people. Everybody knows robots love Sweet Home Alabama. You don’t have to make nice with the machines to be safe, Reese. Just be yourself!
[via THR]