Agentic Gwyneth in the Hamptons
– 4 min read
Yesterday, an invite leaked for a dinner Goop is hosting for OpenAI (aka ChatGPT) founder Sam Altman. I’ve tried to trace who broke the story, the first published story I could find was on Puck News.
The dinner is off-the-record (wink wink) and al fresco, which is a fancy way of saying keep your mouth shut and we are eating outside. You know what’s not off the record? Anything anyone in the world types into ChatGPT, because they retain all that data to train their models.
It is no surprise Gwyneth is playing host to this via Goop. She had been banging the AI drum for months, at one event even proclaiming, “the train has left the station.” Maybe it has, but some of us are still happily standing on the platform.
It’s normal to feel icky about AI, even as we brush up against it in our lives either purposefully or not at work, by using a customer service chatbot. It’s not that AI exists, it’s the problem pointed out in the Hacks monologue: the idea that it is inevitable, that we have no choice. We are constantly told that we must accept it. That if we reject it, we will get left behind.
Gwyneth thrives on being influential; she thrives on being perceived as a tastemaker; she has said many times over how she has knocked down doors for women. I’m sure she has twisted herself into knots to justify how AI is cool and good for women but the great thing about celebrities is we don’t need to listen to them. Like we can totally disregard Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon, Brad Pitt and everyone else who has recently spoken in favour of it. Have you noticed it’s all celebrities of a certain age, in their 50s and 60s, banging this drum? I don’t ever hear Gen Z or Millennials speaking positively about AI in art. Maybe the older celebrities are really the ones worried about being left behind and they are pushing that anxiety onto us. Leave us behind, please!
This particular dinner, with the ugly invitation, is a progression of what she’s been doing for months. Business Insider ran a story this morning breaking down her many investments in AI and how AI now functions as a ‘chief of staff’ for Goop (I’m sure her human staff, who have gone through multiple rounds of layoffs, are just thrilled).
If you look at the Goop podcast page, there are five recent podcasts that are focused on AI (including an AI weapons company). She isn’t talking about it so much because she loves it, she’s talking about it because she wants investors from Silicon Valley to take Goop seriously. She’s talking about it because she’s got some skin in the game through investments in various AI companies. She has been trying to court tech forever (she even once mentioned emailing Jeff Bezos and not getting a response, which is “you couldn’t waterboard that out of me” information).
And maybe Goop does have a legitimate fit for AI on its retail side, like programs for stocking products or trend forecasting. Goop’s business IS retail, the editorial has never taken off – has there ever been a viral article from Goop, besides the “conscious uncoupling” moment? The company has subsisted on her fame and strategic rage-baiting which, judging by me writing this, is still working for them. Goop has gone through a lot of financial strife and this move to AI looks desperate because it probably is. Whatever they are doing now needs to work and needs to work cheaply because this cat cannot have that many lives left.
But there is the problem of selling it to the public, a meeting of “art and commerce,” which so far has been met with a lot of backlash. Audiences don’t want AI in media. Because, really, is there anything tackier than AI? Even the people who use it don’t think it’s chic, it’s corny as f-ck. And how and why did she pick Sam Altman? ChatGPT is the fast food of AI and we all know Gwyneth Paltrow won’t touch fast food. If she was going for any kind of prestige, she would be cozying up to Anthropic, which is run by twins Dario and Daniela Amodei, who left OpenAI because they disagreed with Sam Altman’s leadership.
And now, with the leak, the RSVP email will be be flooded so maybe this dinner isn’t going to happen on this date, but can you imagine this circle jerk? All these people clamouring to be part of an elite group, heading to Amagansett to pick over a salad and slobber over these “great thinkers and modern philosophers” debating the merits of human consciousness, when really it’s two dumb bitches telling each other, “exaccctllllyyyyy.”
We're Squawking Gwyneth and her out of touch dinner today. Join us! (App link here.)
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