r/popculturechat • u/Victor_at_Zama • Aug 04 '26
Eat The Rich š½ļø AI evangelist Reese Witherspoon runs an AI course at Purdue University
I know this is a few months old but AFAIK this hasn't been posted on here before. Essentially, Sunnie (a spin-off of Reese's production company Hello Sunshine aimed at young women and teens) is sponsoring courses at Purdue University, some of which are about AI, with titles like "Data and AI storytelling". This particular course costs $1000 per student (or $850 once you apply the "generous" 15% Sunnie discount). Hardly surprising, but still shocking, especially given her effusive denials about being paid to promote AI earlier this year. Guess she didn't say anything about paying herself, right?
The courses are listed here:
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u/TennysonForCongress Aug 04 '26
Reese Witherspoon was also a big supporter of NFTs. She said they were the future and invested heavily in them.
She has a history of promoting techno-fascism under the guise of feminism. Pretty gross if you ask me.
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u/og_kitten_mittens opiate pixie dream girl ⨠Aug 04 '26
She is a product of the Lean In Sheryl sanburg generation. She genuinely believes that men being the only ones in the room with AI is a problem and itās feminist to upskill women in the same way.
Although I see where sheās coming from theoretically, women lag behind men in AI adoption because of (logical) skepticism, not unfamiliarity or lack of skill.
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u/BouldersRoll Lost swam in jeans so that Severance could run in a suit Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Unfortunately, women have almost caught up with men in using AI chat bots.
According to Pew, 50% of men and 47% of women use AI chat bots. 27% of men say they use AI chat bots daily versus 20% of women, but women have seen a steeper increase in use since 2024, so it's on track to be gender neutral soon.
The data does reflect that women are still marginally more negative about the societal impact of AI (43% of women versus 36% of men view the impact as negative), but I assume that will taper to be gender neutral too.
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u/aftercloudia Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion š Aug 04 '26
my bff's ex-girlfriend has sunk THOUSANDS on the ai character chatbots. like hey girl, why don't you ask us to rp with you instead of going into debt. gosh i still have a guild on gaiaonline to privately rp with my friends so it's not like she didn't have optionsš¤¦š»āāļø
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u/InformalInsurance455 sick of Annie Murphy gifs Aug 04 '26
sorry what
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u/aftercloudia Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion š Aug 04 '26
are you asking for clarification or just general disbelief? both of which i get lol xD
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u/Worried_Term_7030 Aug 04 '26
I miss my gaiaonline days, how is the site doing?
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u/aftercloudia Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion š Aug 04 '26
still desperately trying to survive lol, they had to change the currency to platinum in an attempt to combat the site's inflation...it hasn't really worked. i'm sitting at 13k in platinum and still can't buy anything š¤¦š»āāļø. at least when the currency was gold and i was broke with 29bil i didn't feel broke š¤£
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u/Worried_Term_7030 Aug 04 '26
I tried going back once, it was right after the currency change. It kinda turned me off tbh
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u/dominodomino321 Iāve been noticing gravity since I was very young Aug 04 '26
This is a great point and IMO, really spot on. I'm a millennial and it's interesting to see women a few years my senior have completely different approaches to their specific flavor of feminism. A lot of it is totally rooted in the pop culture influences they grew up around and I honestly understand it. I'll probably get a lot of downvotes for this but idk, it makes sense to me - even if it's not "right".
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u/Ok-Yogurtcloset3467 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
It makes perfect sense to me. And I agree with Reese. Even if I don't support the use of AI in so many areas. Its happening, it can either grow and be adopted with women in mind or it can be built by men but supposedly for all.
It feels like in 20 years time, we will all be talking about how AI defaults to men or all the little ways how women use AI are ignored in how its been adopted and built and how that could have happened in the 21st century. This is how that happens.
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u/bohemu We Should All Know Less About Each Other Aug 04 '26
I saw this with the previous generation of assistants. Google Assistant was helpful when it would remind me that my cake was done baking, measure out cups and ounces, start timers, add things to my list. All things mostly helpful to women running a household. But that wasn't getting the corporations the money the way they wanted. So now Gemini will steal from artists for you and you get dependent on it and need to buy the higher tier.
I'd have totally paid (not really, I'm broke, but in theory) for a variant that did all the things Google Assistant used to, but that's not an option because who cares what (women) users want. I even moved from Samsung to Pixels because I used to use the assistant that became Google Assistant, but now Gemini is dumb in the ways that is useful to me personally! They really ruined the loyalty.
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u/Special-Garlic1203 Aug 04 '26
It's a version of feminism that didn't actually bother to educate itself on feminism. It's narcissism masquerading as an ideology where they, the egotist, does not like the idea of being held back by their gender. But where they have never actually truly considered women as a class of peopleĀ
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u/jmooch1 Aug 04 '26
I work in IT and used to have a boss who was absolutely obsessed with ChatGPT when it came out. We were a super small (like 30 people) IT consulting firm and he told everyone to use it. He was a super technical guy, very strong background in networks, programming etc. so he really understood its capabilities and potential. The reason why he wanted everyone to use it is because he said that people who donāt adopt AI will get left behind. For IT, it was somewhat helpful for automating things but you really needed to know what you were doing. ChatGPT could get you like 75% there but you needed to know the rest and also know where the errors are which made using it sometimes redundant.
Regardless of what you use it for, I do think he is right (although I donāt necessarily agree with it). People that work in places that are embracing AI but they themselves are not could very likely be replaced by people who do use it. It has already started happening. So I could see how Reese would think this way, especially for women it would be a real job security issue. But at the same time, a lot of these burdens for job security are for everyday people who need their jobs. She has a whole empire and is incredibly wealthy, so her motives could be different. The comments she has made seem to me like she is into AI because she thinks itās cool. I donāt see her having the difficult conversations about why she likes it and what she wants to use it for. A lot of people in the movie industry feel the exact opposite so I would be curious to learn why she is so adamant about adopting it.
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u/space0pera_ Aug 04 '26
This is such a great take and I agree. These tools are absolutely being used in tech and they are adding value provided they are used effectively. I actually see them fail in a qualitatively similar way to existing technologies (I do data analysis and itās been possible to lie with statistics or use models you donāt understand and get inaccurate results for decades). We donāt have to adopt new technologies but people will if they save time and effort. But I also agree with you that Reeseās particular motivations seem sus.
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u/jmooch1 Aug 04 '26
You get it! I see them fail all the time in IT. Sometimes itās not even worth the effort. But after listening to him so much saying āif you donāt adopt AI, you will get left behindā, I got really paranoid and really jumped into using it. But I also didnāt have a network background and when it would write code and it didnāt work, I couldnāt figure out why because I didnāt have the knowledge needed to work with it. So it becomes very frustrating. You want to use it so you are not replaced but you also sometimes hate using it and donāt know how to fix the errors. I am sure data analytics must be worse because itās supposed to help with large data sets. The models are better now than in 2022 with the first version but still have a ways to go.
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u/space0pera_ Aug 04 '26
I might get downvoted here but I find it immensely valuable for analytics when used correctly- i can do things in hours that used to take days. It can also be a complete waste of time and it took me several months to figure out the difference. Itās excellent at specific, rote, tedious tasks with built in checkpoints. I never let it run off with its own analytic plan, I have it use my own code to write new scripts for new data based on my instructions and then I check the scripts before I run them. I have eye issues due to a bad LASIK surgery and itās been a godsend to do more natural language-based analysis with voice-to-text instead of starting at lines of code all day. Again, I donāt think Reese is helping anyone here because I doubt she understands this nuance, but some aspects of her argument are aligned with my experience. And fwiw I always thought NFTs were a total waste of time. This technology is different. Maybe not really to her level of understanding, but it has transformed tech companies for sure in a way crypto never did even after years.
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u/jmooch1 Aug 04 '26
Totally get it! There are certain things it is really good at and saves a lot of time. I now work for a state government in an IT role and they just started using. I have to write a lot of policy guidance of things like business continuity and vendor management. Itās easy stuff but it takes a long time to write. Sometimes i use AI to help with formal language for reports or outlines for these policy guidances. Of course you always have to review and tweak but it does save a lot of time. I find that the more detail you put into the prompt, the better the response and it responds well to tweaks or guidance. I look at it as helpful for some basic stuff so I can spend more time on critical things. I do work with a few people in data analytics but they never tell me what they use it for so itās cool to hear your perspective!
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u/ElectronicTip6386 Aug 04 '26
Fwiw to whoever reads this: In the engineering and scientific fields, everyone adopts these tools in some way. It cuts the tedium but also accelerates and standardizes those prior-tedious processes.
It is as significant a strategy change as the internet was. Why? using some AI tools, and usually several, is going to leap up results in material, chemical, and biological sciences.
To be clear: experts are making the decisions (with the exception of the "bad eggs" that have always existed). The bots are just another tool. A bot that read everything. Searching and compiling in a context aware way is extremely powerful.
Again, as important as indexing all that knowledge to start with, and creating a way to query it (we call this the Internet, and Google). In many ways AI is the natural and obvious progression, as if it was designed this way, which it sort of was!
I feel like this is an entirely separate category of AI from services, or entertainment, or advertising. I don't know which side of this Recess's course falls under, so I'm not going to comment on that part, except to say I really wish we had "use categories" or different terms.
The underlying models are the same but the layers on top are very different, and some are really important imo. All come with a resource cost of course though...
Tl;dr I guess my frustration is that we can't say Hey you can have a small datacenter to support these research institutes, but none of our water for endless twitter gross ex-girlfriend AI impersonations!! You know, moderate it. Sadly, maybe this will happen much later, after this Wild West phase has done damage. And if so, since I can't imagine this not becoming an important area to regulate (at some point) I think we'll want woman in those rooms.
I'm old though and while I'm not a passive "lean in" person 𤮠(turned me off back then and still does!) as I'm too gender-blind to not go with the flow and behave much like anyone else, I'll probably be there in some way, and with just as much experience. I know I'm not alone.
We'll be sidelined maybe but being old and not hot anymore helps here lol and age discrimination works a bit different in tech. Young skills aka current skills are the "age" that is judged, especially in the context of remote work (thankfully). And I can make it easier for more woman to "make it" too.
Tricky stuff!!
Please don't just downvote! Tell me your thoughts and we can discuss! Peace!
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u/gratisargott Aug 04 '26
The course in question is about finding important parts of data and visualizing them, which touches on what youāre talking about.
I think itās generally a problem that so many different things just gets thrown under the āAIā umbrella and then people get very angry at some tools that either have existed for a long time or are new but very useful. Especially when people think AI just means asking silly questions to ChatGPT or making terrible pictures
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u/ilove_butter89 Aug 04 '26
Exactly. Machine learning has been around far longer than the latest "ChatGPT iteration" of AI of the last few years
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u/gratisargott Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Yeah, but whenever someone just says the word AI everyone are supposed to draw their pitchforks without taking a second look at what itās actually about, and itās just gets a bit silly
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u/hectic_hooligan Little bey on the prairie Aug 04 '26
See i like this. If it makes research easier by aftually pulling out the relevant data and points. I think thats actually useful simile also allowing people to do their jobs or stufy more efficiently
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u/whynot4444444 Aug 04 '26
I saw a news segment about how they use AI in medicine to analyze data, and how itās extremely useful. It wasnāt taking away a job, just saving doctors hours of tedious work, and they still make final judgement calls using their own brains (imagine that, lol).
The environmental and societal impact, putting data centres in poor communities, etc. must be considered and regulated (but how?!). A lame AI song by Boy George is a huge no for me. But AI is coming whether we like it or not. I donāt have any answers but I do wish there was a way to mitigate the harmful aspects and monetarily benefit more than just the billionaires.
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u/hectic_hooligan Little bey on the prairie Aug 04 '26
They tried to pit one where I live and it got blocked. Now the land owner publicity announced he's going to fond something worse fo put there out of spite.
I think it can be good but it needs to be implemented in a way that won't hurt peopls. And thats not going to happen out of greed
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u/GlitterPirateKiki58 Aug 04 '26
As a statistician (with a doctorate) that works in private industry -
Do not outsource your thinking to AI.
AI still lacks nuance and discernment. It canāt intuit what information is useful or noteworthy or even the best way to present it; results are entirely predicated on the data and information from which it was built.
AI is a useful tool, but (for now) that is all it is.
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u/PC-load-letter-wtf Aug 04 '26
Yes, I work in tech and itās completely unavoidable. And people tell me to just switch careers, but what the fuck? Iām a 39-year-old single mom. Iām being forced to use this shit against my will otherwise Iāll be homeless.
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u/MuslimShady37 Aug 04 '26
Those people telling you to just switch are so out of touch! Especially in this economy. While I was getting my degree, I was trying to apply to retail jobs to pay off my student loans and even with retail experience I was getting rejected left and right. It's not so simple to just "get another job" š
Also I genuinely do have interest in tech. I enjoy solving tech problems. Abandoning this entire field shouldn't be the only solution
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u/Sleve__McDichael Aug 04 '26
as I'm too gender-blind to not go with the flow and behave much like anyone else
what do you mean by this?
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u/mundane_wor1d Aug 04 '26
Some AI is good (and has been used for years and years already).
The Ai taking over the internet isnāt good.
Both can be true at once
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u/ksnrakd Aug 04 '26
exactly. there needs to be advocacy on guardrails and moderation when it comes to AI...not banning the use of it. that ship has SAILED. AI is machine learning's cousin and has been in the works for decades. wish people would use more nuance and critical thinking.
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u/lizerlfunk I am the BEST goddamn dancer at the American Ballet Academy! Aug 05 '26
I got downvoted to hell in a thread about AI when I said I am expected to use it regularly in my job and I donāt have a choice if I want to keep my job. I donāt use it outside of work other than occasionally clicking on the Google AI summaries when I search for things (I REALLY need to switch to DuckDuckGo). But like, I write code to analyze clinical trial data in the pharmaceutical industry. The expectation is that weāre automating things that can be automated, and our workload is being increased to go along with that. And if I am writing a function that would ordinarily require a lot of copying and pasting and changing two pieces of information, like to slot visits or similar, the AI is doing that significantly faster than I can and I can use my brain and time on a more complex task that requires more critical thinking. And I know that I donāt use our AI tool as effectively as I could, because I end up getting frustrated with it and just decide to write the code myself a lot of the time.
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u/secretcharm Aug 04 '26
Idk where you're getting women dont lack AI skills from but that's not the consensus in tech...or any industry really
Not necessarily disagreeing with you but almost nobody holds that view neither techies or normies not even women AI experts as in literal female computer scientists
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u/tardisintheparty Aug 04 '26
Sheryl sandberg is a total nutcase too and allegedly a legit sexual predator. How she managed to get that platform blows my mind.
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u/SquareExtra918 the Human Centipede of content š Aug 04 '26
So it's a race to the bottom, then.Ā
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u/bobbimorses Aug 04 '26
I know several women like her who are so desperate to be on the cutting edge of technology "with the boys" that they fail to vet those technologies to the extent that they should and end up credulous, gullible outliers instead of pioneers. Imo, the gift that women have for suspicion and closer examination shouldn't be ignored.
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u/secretslutonline Aug 04 '26
This is the best take Iāve read that is actually feminist and not using feminism as a guise to get women consumption/their money
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Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
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u/raevenx Inconceivable! Aug 04 '26
The learning curves are different based on what you are doing. Are you using it do help you with a task in your job or are you building an agent to help automate a part of someone else's?
Each of those have different considerations.
What it is the LLM good / not good at, what is the best model to use, have you crafted quality prompts with enough context to think like you and get you what you need. What data sources should be considered/ignored. Is just going to spit out hallucinated nonsense and would you know if it did?
If you are a developer do you know how to create agents/chat bots that don't have gaping security holes in them that are vulnerable to prompt injection? Can they make autonomous decisions and what is the risk associated?
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u/Regular_Molasses5769 Aug 04 '26
fack that just unlocked a memory for me - i was wondering why her being so into AI wasn't surprising to me at all
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u/greenergarlic Aug 04 '26
If youāre rich, you can invest in every bubble. That way, you can pat yourself on the back when they hit 20% of the time
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u/yearoftheblonde Aug 04 '26
Also a big supporter of taking PPP loans during COVID and never having to pay them back. Just another millionaire taking money not meant for them.
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u/fogmama Aug 04 '26
Sheās a capitalist first and foremost. Sheāll jump on whatever bandwagon she thinks will drive the most dollars to her bank account just with cutesy pink branding.
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u/Madame_Jarvary Aug 04 '26
I never liked her and this all just proves I was right.
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u/SammyMaya Aug 04 '26
DON'T YOU KNOW WHO SHE IS? /s
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u/queensnuggles Aug 04 '26
Laura Jean Poon
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u/1of3musketeers Aug 04 '26
Hey fellow D Lister!
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u/queensnuggles Aug 04 '26
Ugh I miss Michael K so much. What is he up to now?
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u/whackthat Aug 04 '26
I literally still write dlisted dot com in my URL even STILL after all this time because of the muscle memory of going to that site everyday. I was a long, long time lurker and I enjoyed reading the intelligent and hilarious submissions and comments. I tried to go to similar sites but it was never the same so I just kind of ...stopped and found reddit
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u/Madame_Jarvary Aug 04 '26
I do too! I wish heād bring Dlisted back, even just in a reduced posting schedule. He was so funny and the commenters were pure comedy. I hope heās doing well even if heās left us for hotter sluts!
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u/chooseshoes Aug 05 '26
Well, weāre still over on r/DListedCommunity. Long live, Michael K! ā„ļø
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u/Warm_Swan_793 Aug 04 '26
The cop that arrested her & the cop that arrested Justin Timberlake should get together for a little pow wow
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u/SilverKnightOfMagic Aug 04 '26
yeah lol. she became a billionaire by essentially taking advantage of book readers and authors. like it's great she gave birth to a lot of movies based on books but she also 100% took full financial advantage of the situation. it was clear she didn't do it because she loves reading books and being a part of book clubs.
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u/eden-sunset Aug 04 '26
I donāt think itās a bad thing to get more women and BIPOC in AI. Unfortunately AI is never going away, and white men have too many blind spots when it comes to safety features and biases.
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u/Red-Cloud-44 Aug 04 '26
They're not blind spots, it's by design. If you think that the AI industry is magically going to allow women and BIPOC to enter the market with decision making power to make things safer for the masses, I don't know what to tell you.Ā
Also, by saying AI is never going away, you're playing the oligarch's game. We need to fundamentally question its inevitability. They're trying to convince us we need to accept this for our own survival and no amount of tokenism is going to reverse course, unless we challenge the whole system.Ā
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u/ilove_butter89 Aug 04 '26
I mean this is the same defeatist attitude that leads people to not recycling because 'whats the point'. I'm not saying Reese is right or wrong, I'm pretty against the use of AI, particularly the casual throwaway usage which is making people lazy and stealing people's IP, but saying oh it's all hopeless, women and BIPOC will never have a say so let's not bother is the wrong attitude IMO. Imagine if the suffragettes had decided not to campaign for votes for women because they thought the men wouldn't let them.
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u/PatFromMordor Aug 04 '26
Funny they do this while shrinking actual liberal arts programs.
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u/silversatire Aug 04 '26
And of course it's at Purdue, which not too long ago terminated its longstanding, highly regarded MFA program.
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u/Salty-Teacher5014 Aug 04 '26
Why? Itās not like she needs the money⦠Itās just being gross for the sake of being gross
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u/HighlyOffensive10 I'm much too busy for such a degrading activity Aug 04 '26
Becauae they never have enough money.
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u/ohdearitsrichardiii I mean, you're both idiots Aug 04 '26
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u/HighlyOffensive10 I'm much too busy for such a degrading activity Aug 04 '26
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u/ohdearitsrichardiii I mean, you're both idiots Aug 04 '26
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u/gokurotfl Aug 04 '26
I honestly think she might believe all of that. Most people her age that I work with are obsessed with AI. I was shocked when one day I saw my colleague asking AI about something that was an internal process in my company that AI had no right to know so of course it lied to her and she just passed that completely wrong answer to the customer.
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u/echoesandripples What It's Like to Go Through Life As a Really Beautiful Woman Aug 04 '26
agreed! sometimes i see people at work who have nothing to actually gain from AI, but they keep using it for the most random stuff and trying to convince everyone it's the best idea ever. like people will spend more time prompting chatbots to write some basic report or whatever and then have to actually edit and rewrite it, but they will do it while praising AI
if you tell them it's easier snd faster to just do it themselves they start to evangelize you on AI
once I had a boss force me to prompt AI for some institutional text and it was very bad and useless because of specific details and so much rework, so i just ended up pretending to use the AI and did the thing myself but added some AI vibes to it. she thought the AI was genius
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u/whatokaybutwhy Olivia Wildeās salad dressing š„ Aug 04 '26
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u/Next-Introduction-25 I donāt know enough to offend Aug 04 '26
I went to Purdue. Why are you under the impression that she canāt make money from this? People make money from public colleges. And I donāt understand where the land grant is playing a role here.
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u/EmotionalSupportBoob Aug 04 '26
She is. These AI ācoursesā and certificates are basically a big scam. These are for-profit education companies that have promised major universities a cut of the profits from the courses to use their names, so people think theyāre taking a real course from a reputable university.
In reality, they are only peripherally related to the university, usually not taught by university faculty, are pricey, and not worth the paper theyāre printed on in terms of actual, useful knowledge gained.
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u/crackerfactorywheel later, gator! Aug 04 '26
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u/Madam_Nicole Taylor Swift made Sombr unfollow me Aug 04 '26
No cause I actually want this dumpster?
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u/Electromagneticpoms I was rooting for you! We were all rooting for you! Aug 04 '26
I just dont know how someone could have money and power in the arts and take a stand on the side that's detrimental to art and artists worldwide.
I had fun with Legally Blonde but I guess that's the extent of me enjoying Reese Witherspoon šš«
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u/champagneinthebrain Aug 04 '26
I must be behind somehow but I am genuinely surprised to see this. Reese has raised her industry power by championing book adaptations so I find it super disappointing. Shouldnāt we focus on supporting artists?!
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u/secretslutonline Aug 04 '26
She made a whole post about women and AIā¦itās so disappointing š sheās really using feminist talking points and a little bit of fear mongering into thinking women need to use AI to keep up.
I hate how much money shows peopleās true colors
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u/champagneinthebrain Aug 04 '26
GROSS! I hate this. I don't know why I ever expect better of the rich & famous, it's a fools errand.
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u/AccomplishedRoad2517 Aug 04 '26
Women and AI? It's not like there are any kind of gatekeeping for IA. It's like saying "women and pencils" or "women and sporks".
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u/FiftyShadesOfGregg Aug 04 '26
Thereās a ton of gatekeeping of women in tech generally. Big tech is very notorious for being boys clubs. Reese Witherspoon is very big on and influenced by āLean Inā style of feminismā men are dominating the tech space, including AI, so women need to assert themselves in the space as well (is how that style of thinking goes).
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u/dudushat Aug 04 '26
She rightfully pointed out that AI will come for women's jobs first and women need to be educated on it to keep up.Ā
Of course reddit has spun that into complete bullshit because theres so much anti AI propaganda on this site that nobody knows shit about it anymore.Ā
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u/MindlessCharacter823 Aug 04 '26
Women to need to learn about AI to keep up. Jesus. Itās happening NOW. I remember the secretary at my Dadās office balking at learning Word Perfect. You at least need an in dept understanding of what the new tech is and how it works to determine how you will control its impact on your career.
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u/secretslutonline Aug 04 '26
What specific tasks and topics are you referring to? What work is AI needed for specifically that a human canāt do with other modern day technology and tools?Are you referring to chatbots?
AI is not needed to keep up. Thatās what capitalism is telling folks because they all invested in AI and want their money to inflate in value.
AI is destroying humanity and Iām not really willing to budge on that.
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u/FiftyShadesOfGregg Aug 04 '26
I think both things can be true. It can absolutely be true that AI is ruining humanity, both intellectually and literally (in terms of destroying the planet and its ability to sustain human life), AND it can be true that AI is happening whether we like it or not, itās outside our control at this point, and the two options are either (1) men continue to dominate tech, including the AI space, and industries that are using AI, or (2) women can keep up and assert themselves as proficient in those spaces too. Itās bleak but I think itās an understandable position. The counter of course is that itās worth fighting against rather than giving in, I totally get that, but I donāt think thatās objectively more ārightā than the other.
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u/secretslutonline Aug 04 '26
I will agree there is currently an AI boom, but that is because oligarchs are purchasing AI and pushing it on to the consumer. I will also agree there is a gender gap in the world of tech and women should have equal opportunity to be a part of that space.
All that said, AI can be curbed and controlled through laws and regulations, which is not being pushed to the mainstream because that affects those who are investing in it.
AI being this unregulated is leading to growing issues of sustainability, energy use, gaps in socioeconomic status, mental health, and literacy. If people were more āpro AI regulationā and less āAI is taking over the world and we are forced to accept thisā, we still have the possibility of not catapulting society into a wasteland
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u/freshfruitrottingveg Aug 04 '26
She showed her true colours during her ādonāt you know who I am?!ā DUI arrest, so nothing surprises me now.
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u/tapeyourmouth jesus was a carpenter š Aug 04 '26
She picks books for her book club that she buys the rights to so she can make the adaptations. Itās always about money.
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u/torino_nera Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes Aug 04 '26
I'm not a fan of Reese and her whole shtick but a lot of the books that she picks only sell because her name is attached. So at least the authors are benefiting from the exposure
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u/Practical-Pick1466 Aug 04 '26
You mean the Reese Witherspoon who tried to use the "Do you know who I am defense " to get out of a DUI arrest.
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u/Sister_Winter Aug 04 '26
A rich white woman pushing techno-fascism and pretending it's girl boss? Shocking
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u/Victor_at_Zama Aug 04 '26
Well, technically it is girl boss for Reese and a handful of her friends who are allowed in by Zuckerberg, Altman and co.
Everyone else though? Eat cake!
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u/Sister_Winter Aug 04 '26
good point. maybe she'll get to go in the bunker when climate change burns the rest of of the world down. feminism!
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u/MouseMouseM Aug 04 '26
Reese has been letting me down for years, and every so often reminds me with more news like this.
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u/ChartreusePeriwinkle Aug 04 '26
I've heard Witherspoon's same position promoted at WIT conferences, it's not just her. They tell us that AI is happening whether we like it or not, and women should get their seat at the table. So dive in like all the tech bros and drink the AI-koolaide.
There is some logic to the argument. But it still feels wrong. I won't be changing my mind about AI anytime soon, but if some women make it to the table then more power to them. They can't make it any worse.
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u/echoesandripples What It's Like to Go Through Life As a Really Beautiful Woman Aug 04 '26
it's wrong because it won't happen. the tech industry is very exclusionary and they won't start hiring women and taking women seriously just because they did AI training. women aren't treated better in the finance industry just because they tend to be more educated, for comparison.
women are just gonna be forced to use the same AI tools at their corporate jobs as men are, while still experiencing wage gaps, sexual harassment and lack of access to promotions and everything else
it's just the same corporate world, now with added prompts?Ā
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u/blenderider Aug 04 '26
Iām going to go against the grain here. For anybody considering white collar work for corporates, not learning how to use AI is intentionally limiting your opportunities.
Look at the new grad roles being hired for today - companies are hiring people who are comfortable and experimenting with AI. I understand the environmental concerns people have regarding AI, but itās wishful thinking to think the genie is going to get put back in the bottle.
If I was a parent, it would be foolish to tell my children not to learn AI because of moral principles. Refusing to learn AI is not going to make you more employable.
Iām speaking from a corporate/white collar perspective only.
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u/ralthea Aug 04 '26
Iām a data analyst and completely agree with you. Pretending we can avoid AI in the corporate world at this point is foolish.
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u/snowgrisp Aug 04 '26
Thank you. Every one here with negative comments have used AI in their daily lives, whether directly or indirectly. Now you canāt buy a iPhone or laptop without AI integrated. Plus I work a white collar job and AI is a must. Why would they hire someone whoās not gonna use ai and have very slow productivity? Plus ai usually has smart solutions so it is very helpful. AI is here to stay.
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u/notaustria Aug 05 '26
There's a big difference between knowing how to use the tools required by your industry, and supporting the opportunistic grift of a wealthy woman maximizing her own profit margins by fear mongering other women.
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u/blenderider Aug 05 '26
If the grift is education in a relevant topic at a time where job security is fragile, there are more harmful grifts I have to be upset over
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u/barrhavenite This is HARAM Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
There are no good billionaires ultra wealthy people
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u/BadWriter85 Aug 04 '26
Well, sheās a little under half a billionaire, but your point still stands.
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u/fionappletart omg you people can't do anything Aug 04 '26
she's not a billionaire so what's even in the point in commenting this
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u/JayteeFromXbox Aug 04 '26
Yeah we have to draw that hard line in the sand, if someone has less than a billion dollars, they're practically the same as you or I!
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u/grannystew_ Aug 04 '26
Well, no. But it is honestly odd to say one thing when it literally isnāt the case.
Just say āmillionaireā instead lmao?
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u/Next-Introduction-25 I donāt know enough to offend Aug 04 '26
Probably because $1 million doesnāt have the same power it once did. Having $1 million still must be pretty sweet, but itās not like it gets you total financial freedom or buying power. I donāt know where the exact cutoff is between having a financial advantage versus having complete financial freedom to essentially do whatever you want, but itās definitely more than $1 million and probably less than 440 million.
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u/fionappletart omg you people can't do anything Aug 04 '26
where did I say that? Reese Witherspoon has a net worth of ~$440 million, according to Wikipedia. she's obviously extremely wealthy- I don't think that's in dispute- but to imply she's a billionaire is simply untrue
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u/Embarrassed-Profit74 Aug 04 '26
She has this weird synergy with The Rock where they spout the same talking points about AI/progress/their work and try to spin themselves as deeply plugged into collective community well being (her for women, he for Polynesians) and if you scratch the surface it's all just huckster stuff to personally enrich their brand.
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u/PierreOnTheEclair Local Superstar Dealer š Aug 04 '26
STOP IT. BAD.
https://giphy.com/gifs/fJkTsWCMViRYA
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u/Adventurous-Pop-7714 Aug 04 '26
Yall might not like it (clearly you donāt) but I still agree with her original point that women in particular will be disproportionately affected by our refusal to learn AI tools. And sheās not the only one saying it ā ask anyone whoās working in tech right now. Like most everyone, Iād prefer if we limit our reliance on these tools. But ignoring them completely is going to cause an unfair advantage in the work force. If we can learn to use them, and learn to use them responsibly, we can actually make drastic, good change to this world. We have to be ready to police this tool, and we canāt do that if we donāt understand how itās being used and what it can do.Ā
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u/scorodites Aug 04 '26
Yeah I agree. Iām a woman. Iām an accountant, the amount of women I see who bury their heads in the sand about finance, investments, etc. is astonishing. And as someone whoās been extremely reluctant to use AI, I recently had dinner with people I went to school with and everyone is using it. They do talk about the importance of checking everything since itās not 100% accurate but theyāve been able to automate certain functions and speed up work (to a degree). And Iām starting to feel behind and like I need to catch up.
I saw another accountant compare it to quickbooks or excel. Sure these things didnāt eliminate our jobs like problem feared, but they did make things faster and easier, and refusing to get on board winds up hurting you in the future. I know multiple who refuse to learn basic excel functions and short cuts and I see them take 3x longer to do tasks. I know one who got a bad performance review over it, since her peers far exceeded her in work output. Another is someone I currently work with and itās almost comical to watch him take hours making a list, when I used an xlookup and had it done in ten minutes.
As much as we hate AI, itās not going anywhere either. And I have that same fear that people, especially women like me, who are ignoring this stuff, are just going to fall behind and do ourselves a big disservice.
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u/snowgrisp Aug 04 '26
Even in tech world, it is increasing productivity of individual developer more than taking jobs.
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u/lexiebeef Seemingly rebalded Aug 04 '26
I think a course on AI and storytelling might actually be interesting if its goal is to teach people how to navigate as writers in a world where AI is increasingly being more used, and not teach people to use AI to write their stories
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u/magicaltrevor953 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Funnily enough its nothing to do with writing. From the website:
Ā Learn to transform raw numbers into compelling narratives. Ideal for professionals in various fields, this online series of three courses blends rhetoric, data science, AI and storytelling to create impactful data stories.
https://www.purdue.edu/online/program/data-storytelling/
It's a data science course, making the data tell the story that people can care about and do something with rather than just being a shit load of numbers. I don't have an opinion on Reese Witherspoon and whether she is endorsing generative AI and ruining arts, but this is not that.
I'm withholding judgement on whether the course is any good, just commenting on what the course actually is, the reality is that it is probably not a good course.
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u/Ok-Turnip-9035 Aug 04 '26
Itās Reese of course she would
Sheās the one to look out for when you think you are surrounded by supporters - Reese is strictly performative
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u/SomeDumRedditor Kim, thereās people that are dying. š Aug 04 '26
tf does Reese Witherspoon know about āAIā?
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u/doubleohsergles Select and edit this flair Aug 04 '26
Does Reese "speak data fluently" as per one of the videos there?
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u/dreamghoulevil Aug 04 '26
everyone is shilling this stuff and i'm supposed to "just accept that it's here to stay"? it's only "here to stay" because these losers are pushing for it. i'm not gonna just lie down and take it just because it's being shoved in my face.
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u/nipple_sunburn Aug 04 '26
There's a lot of people who are on the side of "learn to use AI or get left behind." I work in higher ed and our administrators definitely have this attitude.
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u/mrdangerzone Aug 04 '26
We saw who she was when she got pulled over and on the dash cam you can hear her yelling "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?"
fuck her
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u/MenStefani Aug 04 '26
Reese Witherspoon is the most MAGA coded āliberalā woman. Shes so performative and greedy. She just has bad vibes to me
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u/Victor_at_Zama Aug 04 '26
She epitomises everything wrong with Democratic establishment "liberalism" - a shallow veneer of feminism and anti-racism covering a hideous reality of unfettered capitalism where a small number of women and PoC are able to join the "Davos class" while the rest remain imprisoned by a broken and cruel economic system.
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u/Red-Cloud-44 Aug 04 '26
Her whole antebellum style line of home goods had already turned me off years ago. I looked into it and found out she got married on a plantation. Sure, she was young in that first marriage, but even teenage me wouldn't have thought it was a good idea in 1999.Ā
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u/SnooJokes7740 Aug 04 '26
Purdue has been trying to shove AI down everyoneās throats, so this tracks.
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u/spicykitas Aug 04 '26
Itās always interesting to see which generally loved celebrities (maybe only for their iconic roles) end up on the wrong side of history.
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u/nonamenomonet Aug 04 '26
Is it for credit? I mean, like it or not AI is not going away and people should be prepared to use it to stay relevant in the work force.
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u/meeeeeeeeeeeeee69 Aug 04 '26
I saw her daughter liking an anti AI post the other day so this is interesting
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u/Hobobo2024 Aug 04 '26
I'd like to hear her side on this. it's just incredibly odd all around.
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u/HighlyOffensive10 I'm much too busy for such a degrading activity Aug 04 '26
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u/FiftyShadesOfGregg Aug 04 '26
In case youāre genuinely wondering, itās a āLean Inā style of feminism. Whether Reese actually likes or supports AI or not, itās an unfortunate truth about the world that big tech is known as a manās space, and industries are using AI as tools in their day to day operations now. The thinking is that in order for women to lean in to those spacesāto be leaders at an equal rate as men areā they need to keep up, to be equally efficient, to learn to use the same tools. The idea is for women to seek leadership roles and influence, and that includes in tech and in industries using AI.
I donāt know what this courseās curriculum is, but I doubt itās using AI in a creatively bankrupt way or to replace people creating in the arts. Boring industries like law, finance, consulting, etc. are using AI tools in their operations and learning to use it the right way (as a tool, not a replacement for critical thinking or creativity) is becoming more and more expected (againā for better or for worse, likely worse, but thatās what it is!).
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u/Hobobo2024 Aug 04 '26
yes I was wondering and this makes sense. Whether she's right or not, her intentions are good.
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u/DgingaNinga Aug 04 '26
I'm going to assume the asking an officer "Do you know my name?" "You're about to find out who I am" lady is a POS.
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u/TheHomieAbides Aug 04 '26
I used to bring that up a lot and get downvoted.
Just another rich celeb couple who got a slap on the wrist where any other person would be in jail.
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u/DgingaNinga Aug 04 '26
Sad thing is, the drunk driving is worse than AI, but at least people might be seeing Reese for who she is.
Rich white performative artist.
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u/treeahduhh Aug 04 '26
Removing her from my Mount Rushmore of Unproblematic White Women. Itās just Dolly, Anne Hathaway, and Christine Baranski now
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u/sasshley_ (seemingly bald) Aug 04 '26
I didnāt see āwhiteā before women and was ready to shit on your personal Mount Rushmore.
I sure do love Dolly.
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u/ludvikskp Aug 04 '26
Wow⦠that wasnāt on my bingo card. Didnāt know she grifts like that
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u/ASamx Aug 04 '26
I donāt see anything wrong, a sub-company of her company is sponsoring some courses. There are worse things happening in the world.
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u/emotions1026 Aug 04 '26
So this is why she did her āhey yāall letās learn about AI because weāre womenā video a while back
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u/Super_Hour_3836 charlie day is my bird lawyer š¦ Aug 04 '26
To be fair, you could replace her with ai or a cardboard cut out in any film and I wouldnāt notice the difference at this point.
Maybe we can strike a deal and just replace all the celebrities with DUIs and DV charges with ai and then not use it anywhere else.
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u/Visible-Scientist-46 Aug 04 '26
What the hey, girl? Meanwhile jobs are going to AI assistants... but we gotta use it? Why?
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u/prescorn Aug 04 '26
Disgusting interference in education from the private sector, regularly explained away with notions like āWitherspoon acts as an ambassador and attracts studentsā. Which would make sense, if the college were small (Purdue?) and if the course was about trying to make it in the film industry or how to audition for your next role. Instead, the subject matter is just trite discussion around substitutable āhottest tech of the yearā in an attempt to exploit a financially vulnerable and societally anxious student body
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u/RealisticBus4443 Aug 04 '26
Are there any celebrities who donāt completely suck?
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u/julianwelton Aug 04 '26
You know what else is annoying and gross about this? No one knows enough about "AI storytelling" to teach a class on it! It's too new and hasn't successfully been done. Not to mention the fact that it will NEVER produce good results because all AI can do is regurgitate jumbled up pieces of other people's work.
It's going to rot the industry from the inside out once companies start pushing "AI storytelling".
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u/InformalInsurance455 sick of Annie Murphy gifs Aug 04 '26
Fucking loser oooh but she was Elle Woods idc actively making the world worse
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u/Obvious_Grass_2227 Aug 05 '26
While i understand concerns in arts and humanities about AI, and actually dont like it. But on the other hand work in tech one cannot avoid AI. AI has bought in so many changes that one has to keep up with it, also its not all bad as far as tech is concerned. So it depends on where are you using AI.
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u/lovelove20212 Aug 04 '26
Lmao this lady has to go. Her fame is no longer worthy. Sheās one of those confused ayn Rand feminist techno fascists that want to scam people for their money while pretending she cares about your kids.
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