Oprah Winfrey hosts an AI special tonight: What we know

Oprah Winfrey plans to tackle the wide-ranging topic of artificial intelligence in an hour-long special airing tonight on ABC. Her new show, “AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special,” will feature guests such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and technology critic Marques Brownlee.

“The reason I wanted to do this special is because I'm right where most of you are when it comes to AI,” Winfrey said in an Instagram Reel posted earlier this week. “You hear it all the time and you hear that it's going to change our lives and we're aware of it on our phones and you're aware of it in your cars and you're aware of it in certain areas of your life, but what's really coming? What's happening with AI?”

In addition to people who work in or around the AI ​​industry, the show will also feature FBI Director Christopher Wray, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson and the co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology, who will likely discuss the risks that AI poses to developers and people in general.

The AI ​​special is scheduled to air on Thursday, September 12 at 8:00 p.m. ET and will be available on Hulu the next day.

Early criticism of Oprah's AI special

Critics have already criticized the show for its guest list, with some saying the content is more focused on promoting AI than addressing its dangers. Among them is artist and activist Karla Ortiz, who posted a thread on X urging Winfrey to rethink the content of the special.

Brian Merchant, tech columnist for the Los Angeles Times and author of the newsletter “Blood in the Machine,” called the special in an X-Post “an extended sales pitch for the generative AI industry at a time when its revenues are faltering and the AI ​​bubble is threatening to burst.”

Winfrey faced criticism in March when her last special about the weight-loss drug Ozempic aired on ABC.

In a case of AI imitating life, a video purporting to show Winfrey's interview with Sam Altman for the special actually shows an animated version of Winfrey's self-interview before cutting to a cartoon character that looks more like Sam Altman (but not very much like him).