Reese Witherspoon: AI is here to stay
Reese Witherspoon has warned Hollywood to "get used to" AI because it is "here to stay" so it is best to learn how the technology can be used.
Reese Witherspoon has warned Hollywood to "get used to" AI because it is "here to stay".
The 'Morning Show' actress doesn't believe it is artificial intelligence "coming for your job", but the people who know how to use it successfully, so urged those in the industry to learn more about the technology and how it can be used to boost creativity.
Speaking at PaleyFest at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, she said: "It’s here to stay, so just get used to it. And 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 colour 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.”
The 48-year-old star also has a hugely successful production company, Hello Sunshine, and she believes there has been a huge change with streaming services in the wake of the Hollywood strikes, which will ultimately make it "a little bit harder" to sell new shows.
She said: “Streaming was like the biggest thing for three to four years, and there was a never-ending constant smash for content, and like literally we could sell anything.
"What I’m seeing right now, I think from the buying and selling landscape side of it, is that probably part of the strike was a reset for these studios that are not profitable — the streaming services — and an opportunity for them to resize, rework and cut costs.
"So we’re going to probably see less stuff, which is probably good, right? It was just chaos. It was a flea market. We can slow down a little bit. But there’s going to be a more intention around it, and it’s gonna be a little bit harder.”
And Reese admitted the fact many streaming services don't release ratings will have an impact on the careers of actors because it doesn't give them substance to back up their arguments during contract negotiations.
Pointing to her 'Morning Show' co-star Jennifer Aniston, she said: "Are careers like ours possible ever again? Are there opportunities for people to really emerge as a star? How do you know with no data transparency? How do we even know if something did well or didn’t do right?.
"[Netflix is] pretty transparent about it [with some figures] but the other people don’t.
"And it’s tough as an actor — how do you negotiate? How does a producer? How do you market? If you don’t know where you sit in a landscape, how do you value something?
“There’s real amounts of data too, they’ve got a lock on it. They don’t want you to have the advantage, and it’s tough.”
