Reese Witherspoon Has Gone Viral for Saying Its Time to Learn AI. Not Everyone Is Thrilled by That

Reese Witherspoon, Oscar winning actress, producer and renowned book-lover, sat down with her book club yesterday and learned a surprising fact about their exposure to artificial intelligence.

“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 they’re using it the right way?’ And that was only one person,” Witherspoon detailed in a video shared on Instagram yesterday. “So, if three out of 10 women are the only ones using AI, that means 70 percent 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.”

Witherspoon then said, “Let’s get real, our kids are using this every single day.” She encouraged her followers to “learn the basics together” to “make our everyday lives easier and better.” She closed by saying, “It’s time. It’s time, people.”

At last check, Witherspoon’s Instagram Reel has been viewed more than three million times, and the nearly one-minute clip landed to mixed responses. Close friend Kerry Washington loved it, and commented, “THIS,” while CAA power agent Maha Dakhil weighed in by posting, “So very true.”

Others were less enthused. “Dear Reese Witherspoon, now might be a good time to note that men doing something does not make it a good or smart thing to do,” wrote journalist Christina Binkley on Threads. “Please start your education with data centers,” commented another woman on Instagram. “Where they’re being built, the amount of electricity they use, and the dire effects on communities where they are.”

Another user on Threads claims Witherspoon has other motives. “She’s in the arts. AI is stealing and profiting off actual artists’ work. It’s also destroying the planet. She’s heavily invested monetarily in AI and this is where she is coming from.”

Many concerned commenters pointed to the fact that Witherspoon, a prolific producer and actor, has long supported authors through her Reese’s Book Club and done many screen adaptations, and authors were among the loudest voices pushing back against the technology when it was discovered that companies like OpenAI were using books to feed its datasets. The practice led to widespread lawsuits.

See Witherspoon’s clip below.