I started writing this column a year ago, at the peak of the AI panic. Kids were using ChatGPT as a homework cheat code, even as it routinely hallucinated information and bonked at basic math. New and devious criminal uses were emerging almost daily. Chief executives of tech companies were throwing billions into neural networks, while also signing letters of concern about artificial intelligence possibly leading to the extinction of the human race. One lawmaker told me AI would be running Congress well before her peers got around to regulating it.
Today, AI inspires less terror than ennui. That’s a thing humans do — adapt to the unthinkable faster than your average commute. But AI has adapted, too. Chatbots are much less likely to hallucinate than they were a year ago, and almost all of the publicly available AI models won’t let people make deepfakes, bombs or misinformation. We still need AI regulations, but the Biden administration’s executive order on AI has the federal government thawing itself out to prepare for eventual action. If most people remain confused by AI, they’ve been bludgeoned into accepting that whatever it is, it’s here to stay.
Still, there’s a vast middle ground between panic and apathy. It’s called engagement. I’ve spent a year making the case that everyone should engage with what I’m convinced is the most important technological advance of our lifetimes. So now I’m just gonna name-drop someone who co-signs that belief: Oprah Winfrey.
Early this year, Oprah asked if I would work with her on a television special to help ordinary people understand what’s coming and how to be prepared. “AI and the Future of Us” (Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern time on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu) brings together key figures in AI (Sam Altman, Bill Gates), government (FBI Director Christopher A. Wray) and the humanities (Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson), as well as a number of extraordinarily eloquent ordinary people. Oprah questioned them directly, asked everyone to speak plainly, and sometimes made them squirm with choice words and expressions that only the most talented communicator of our era knows how to pull off.
We’ve worked closely together for the past few months, but other than a quick lunch at her home after a prep session — during which I was served a salad from Oprah’s garden featuring the greatest lettuce I have ever eaten; like, fully self-actualized lettuce — it was all business. So I asked Oprah if she would talk to me about her interest in AI and her motives for doing the special. Our conversation has been edited for length.
Josh Tyrangiel: What sparked your interest in AI?
Oprah Winfrey: I was at a conference last year and saw a presentation by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology. AI could offer all these great things in health and education, and yet — no controls. You know, identities being stolen and not knowing what’s real and what isn’t real. The possibility of enhanced cyberattacks. I just felt like, “Wow, I didn’t know this stuff. And I’m sure millions of other people don’t know it, either.” It feels like a major turning point for us and that the information and the opportunities around AI are going to be coming faster than many of our brains can process.
I approached [Disney CEO] Bob Iger and said, “What would you think if we tried to break this down and explained AI to a broadcast audience?” I wanted to do it simply, because I’ve always felt that I was a surrogate for viewers. I get to ask questions that they want to know or are thinking about, but maybe don’t have access to be able to ask. But if they could, they would be asking the same things. And then I found you. So that’s how this happened.
Do you think anyone has done a good job of explaining the basics of what artificial intelligence actually is?
I thought Sam Altman did a really good job in the special. He surprised me in his clarity and efficacy and being able to speak about it in a language that humans can understand. I didn’t expect that.
Several times in the show, you voice concerns about the impact of AI-generated misinformation and deepfakes on ordinary people. Why does that resonate so much?
I mean, one of the things that I know we tried to do, certainly you as producer, and also me in my own tone, was not to scaremonger people, but to have a healthy amount of suspicion and concern about the negative outcomes. I mean, there’s no question that there are positives here. But if you have a criminal mind and are the kind of person who is thinking about how you can get over and how you can scam people, [AI] is just an open door to that. Which means the rest of us have to develop a suspicion muscle. And that’s going to change the way we interact with everything that we read and see and hear. It’s going to change how we interact with each other. We have to ask: Is this real? Where is it coming from? I just know that that’s no way to live. I mean, there’s no peace in suspicion. There’s no peace in constant suspicion.
It seems like the risks from AI — at least as we now understand them — are going to be less about extinction and more about things such as the ability of our culture, economics and laws to adapt. What’s your current level of faith in our institutions?
I don’t have a lot of faith. Everybody realizes there needs to be regulations. Everybody realizes that. Sam Altman realizes it. Bill Gates realizes it. Certainly FBI Director Christopher Wray realizes it. And everybody’s waiting on somebody else to do it. My fear is that, just like with automobiles and other technology that’s moved us forward, so much damage can be done, so many lives impacted negatively before people wake up and actually decide, “Oh, we need a seat belt on this thing. We need speed limits.” And I don’t know who’s going to do that. I certainly don’t expect our lawmakers to get it until it’s too late. I’m hoping this special will be an alert.
You mentioned the positives, so tell me what excites you about AI?
I’m really excited about what it can mean for education. I’m excited that every child will be able to have their own personal tutor that understands them and works at their pace, and that they can feel seen and validated. One of the things that we’re going to see — that you can already see — is the opportunity for doctors. All my friends in the medical field have complained for years about how so much of being a physician is clerical. I mean, it’s filling out forms and making sure that all of the paperwork and all of the insurance stuff gets done. So being able to actually spend time and give attention to your patients, touch them and be with them and actually see them is going to change so much.
You asked Altman how he plans to deal with the fact that almost all the people making AI and profiting from it look like him, and very few of those people look like you. If he had turned the question around and said, “Oprah, help me,” what would you have advised him?
I don’t know what I would have advised him in that moment. But if he had asked me to help him, I would. I mean, I do know that there are other Black and Brown who are engaged in this process, but as he said, it’s dominated by a certain group of white guys. So find yourself Black and Brown people who’ve been doing it and hire them. If they cost more, pay them. I think opening the door, opening the aperture, so that everybody is included is not just really important. It’s essential.
When did you first use AI, and what was the experience like?
I didn’t use AI until after my conversation with Sam Altman while making the special.
Wait, what? You didn’t tell me that.
Never used it. It’s only in the process of doing this special — because I always felt like if you used it for help with a speech or something, then you’re cheating. And now I’ve been using it for everything. You know, “Tell me where the best anything is.” I was looking for Airbnbs for a friend in Nashville. “Tell me where the best Airbnb is?” Now I use it every day for something.
So having made an hour of television, has anything changed about the way you see AI?
I have a more enhanced view of what’s coming, and I am myself more sensitized to developing that muscle of looking at the world from the point of view of what is real and what isn’t real. So I am on alert.
