Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who added UN global advocate for human-centered digital governance to his resume, warned the public to be “concerned about the people building AI” and how the technology is being trained to “hijack your privacy” in a vlog-style video interview with The New York Times published Saturday.
When asked by the outlet what he feared most about AI, the “500 Days of Summer” actor responded that he didn’t want to reduce “those concerns to one sentence of fear.” “That’s one of the problems. For me to say, Oh, I’m afraid that AI could wipe out all of humanity — that doesn’t really address the root of the concern. There’s real validity to that concern. But that’s not what I’m really worried about,” Gordon-Levitt said.
He went on to say that what worries him is “the decline of democracy, the decline of human empathy.” “These companies are betting on the idea that they’re going to take over the entire economy. That would be totalitarianism, and it would be really bad… At the same time, these models are being trained to hijack your privacy, to befriend you, to make you fall in love with it. We shouldn’t be afraid of an AI. We should care about the people building the AI.”
Gordon-Levitt was appointed to a brand new position at the United Nations in March. At the time, the organization defined it as “a newly established role aimed at strengthening the public’s understanding of how digital technologies shape daily lives, rights and opportunities.”
The actor and director has long been outspoken about AI, and in January he joined more than 700 artists, writers and creators, including Scarlett Johansson and Cate Blanchett, to support an anti-AI campaign denouncing tech companies that exploit copyrighted works without permission.
Watch the full video here.
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