Long before the term "influencer" became fashionable, Oprah Winfrey was shaping narratives—and she’s doing it again. In her recent ABC TV special on artificial intelligence (AI), she declared, “Life for all of us is about to be very different.” According to Oprah, AI will transform the world “unimaginably for the good.”

Not everyone agrees. Many see AI as a threat—to jobs, freedom, and even human existence. But this is Oprah’s story, and with the help of luminaries like Sam Altman, Bill Gates, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson, she lays out an optimistic vision of AI as a revolutionary “tool” that enhances our humanity. As a piece of narrative-building, it’s as intriguing for what it doesn’t say as for what it does.

AI as a Tool

Oprah starts by asking Sam Altman to describe the world in 2035. He hesitates: “It’s hard to do without sounding like a crazy person,” he admits, then plunges into it.

According to Altman, AI will enable us to create things of all sorts and in ways limited only by our imagination. Someone who wants to build a beautiful house will use AI to design it, then turn to robots to construct it. AI will generate products, businesses, and services we can’t yet imagine. The technology, he assures us, really is that powerful.

Altman’s vision may be captivating, but it requires a leap of faith. Oprah therefore turns to Bill Gates to ground these claims in the trusted language of science. Gates explains AI’s potential as a powerful tool for research and analysis, predicting it will accelerate scientific discovery and revolutionize fields like healthcare and education.

For viewers, this is less of a stretch and easier to grasp. Science has already transformed our world, and most of us are willing to believe it could do so again, bigger and better. Still, change can be unsettling. Oprah wonders if AI will eliminate jobs. “If work is dignity, how will this affect us?” she asks.

Gates invites us to imagine AI tutors offering personalized learning for every child, while still working alongside human teachers. His point is that human oversight and creativity will continue to make a unique, critical contribution. AI will improve how we work, but people remain essential. Gates is affirming that we can have Altman’s abundance while preserving the most dignified aspects of work.

Putting Good Tools to Bad Use

The tool metaphor may help us distinguish AI from humans, but tools can be used for good or bad. So, what convinces Oprah the future is good? After all, early social media was supposed to help us focus on facts through abundant information. Instead, disinformation has become a powerful weapon to distract and deceive us, prompting Oprah to ask how we can avoid the same fate with AI.

FBI Director Chris Wray outlines the risks, starting with deepfakes and misinformation. These tools can support new types of crimes, from telephone scams using fake voices to foreign interference in our elections. 

There is some good news: Wray views this kind of misinformation as a “manageable risk.” The challenge ahead he tells us is to ensure people become more informed and vigilant.

However, as the technology advances, so do the risks. Geopolitics presents a more serious challenge. In China, AI powers an authoritarian surveillance state, while in the US it supports liberal democracy. Tensions between these uses are rising, and AI is becoming a flashpoint.

The key question, notes Wray, is how these tools will be governed—an urgent policy debate that’s advancing faster than anyone anticipated. Navigating this change will require regulation that strikes the right balance. We’ll return to this at the end.

Rescuing Our Humanity

Marilynne Robinson gives the final interview, setting up Oprah’s pivotal moment. As her voice of dissent, Robinson warns that AI risks eroding the human achievements of thought, writing, and learning, while Big Tech drives its agenda deep into society.

“I’m afraid so much investment is being poured into this project that it will have consequences before it truly deserves them…We may end up with a disrupted economy on one hand and an unusable technology on the other.”

Robinson’s critique reflects broad societal unease that AI threatens to overshadow or mechanize our humanity. It also delivers a pointed jab at Oprah’s optimism. The response is both deft and devastating. Oprah wonders aloud if Robinson is just clinging to a familiar world. The next generation, she muses, will barely remember how we live today—this is how social change happens.

But if Oprah largely dismisses Robinson’s attack on AI, she rescues her appeal to our humanity. Robinson may rail against pro-tech “elites” like Altman and Gates, but her focus on the value of human skills aligns with theirs. Oprah consolidates these gains, reinforcing the premise that our humanity is unique.

Robinson thus serves as both Oprah’s foil and the prophet of her highest truth. If Oprah uses Robinson to slay the dragon of disbelief, she also uses her to place our humanity at the centre of her narrative, offering hope in contrast to the technocratic view of AI as mere machinery.

An American Story of Faith and Hope

Oprah closes her special by reaffirming her optimism about AI. She has investigated many key concerns in the broader debate, concluding they are manageable, while the potential gains are enormous. “I don’t think we should be scared,” she concludes. “We should be disciplined, and we should honor it with reverence for what is to come.”

This summary is telling. It reflects quintessentially American values: change, optimism, hard work, and a sense of awe reminiscent of the “god-fearing” frontiersmen who built the country. Oprah’s account is a very American story.

But it is also marred by a curious oversight: In Oprah’s narrative, geopolitics is the greatest threat, with China as the emerging villain in the AI arms race. 

Many will find this baffling, including AI giants like Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio. In their view, the greatest danger from AI is not geopolitical competition but the possibility that AI evolves beyond a tool into a superintelligent, autonomous entity that could turn against humans.

Strangely, Oprah never raises this concern, and her silence is conspicuous—especially since Sam Altman himself believes superintelligent AI is not only possible but likely. Why the omission?

Human-like AI pushes the debate to a far more uncertain level. It undermines the tool metaphor and challenges the uniqueness of humanity. If AI becomes superintelligent, it ceases to be just a tool, and our claim to uniqueness may disappear.

In short, a human-like AI intelligence is a possibility that Oprah’s story cannot contemplate. Her narrative rests on the tool metaphor and the uniqueness of our humanity. It would collapse under the weight of such an AI. Her story of America’s future is crafted to exclude or at least ignore such a development. Nevertheless, the question remains: Is this kind of AI part of America’s future? 

Only time will tell.

Don Lenihan PhD is an expert in public engagement with a long-standing focus on how digital technologies are transforming societies, governments, and governance. This column appears weekly.