Oprah Winfrey discusses her experience using AI: “It was miraculous”

Oprah Winfrey is offering her take on artificial intelligence ahead of ABC’s AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special.

Speaking to ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis in an interview with Good Morning America which aired on Thursday, the multi-hyphenate media mogul said, “We are in for the ride of our lives” with the technology.

“Life for all of us is about to be very different,” she said.

Winfrey told Jarvis she has always seen herself as “the surrogate viewer” of the topics she explores and understands that if she is curious to understand something, she isn’t the only one.

“If I don’t know the answer, I know that the other millions of people who are watching are feeling the same,” she said, adding that her first encounter with the AI didn’t happen until her first conversation with Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, the company behind the AI-based virtual assistant ChatGPT.

She continued, “After he was telling me about all the things that I could do, I was saying, ‘Okay, don’t be scared. Don’t be scared. You can get the ChatGPT app.'”

Winfrey shared her first experience with ChatGPT was asking the app to provide AirBnb listings for a friend.

“And it was miraculous to me that before you can practically finish the requests, the answer has come back to you,” she said.

In the new ABC primetime special, Winfrey explores “the profound impact of artificial intelligence on people’s daily lives, demystifying the technology and empowering viewers to understand and navigate the rapidly evolving AI future,” according to a press release.

AI and the Future of Us will premiere on Thursday, Sept. 12 on ABC at 8 pm E.T. and be available to stream on Hulu the next day.

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