{"id":626537,"date":"2026-10-10T16:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T16:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626537\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T16:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T16:38:09","slug":"joseph-gordon-levitt-warns-a-i-models-trained-to-hijack-your-intimacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626537\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Gordon-Levitt Warns A.I. Models “Trained To Hijack Your Intimacy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn a new video interview for The New York Times, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt<\/a>, serving as the United Nations\u2019 global advocate of human-centric digital governance, has some concerning words about the impact of artificial intelligence. Things like the \u201cdecline of democracy, the decline of human empathy\u201d and the hijacking \u201cof your intimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe video interview takes place as Gordon-Levitt is in en route to address world leaders and officials gathered at the U.N. on the impact of A.I.<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the full video below.<\/p>\n

\n\tFirst question: Why should the public listen to an actor on A.I. safety? <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cVery fair question,\u201d Gordon-Levitt responds. \u201cWhy listen to an actor? Don\u2019t listen to an actor. You should read Human Compatible by Stuart Russell. Go look up Yoshua Bengio. Read posts by people who work in alignment and safety and policy. You don\u2019t want to read all those things? Well, I did! So, you know, if you want to listen to me, that\u2019s a shortcut.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGordon-Levitt continues, \u201cWhat we don\u2019t want is a bunch of people confused or apathetic while these very fast-moving businesses design the future by themselves, just in the interests of their own profits. A lot of what needs to happen, I think, has to do with communication, which is ultimately kind of what acting or filmmaking is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt one point in the direct-to-cell phone-camera interview, Gordon-Levitt is asked what he fears most about A.I.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt the risk of annoying The New York Times,\u201d he responds, \u201cI would object to that question just because reducing these concerns into one sound bite of fear \u2014 that\u2019s one of the problems. To me, saying: Oh, I\u2019m scared that A.I. could exterminate all of humanity \u2014 that doesn\u2019t really get at the substance of the concern. There\u2019s real validity to that concern. But that\u2019s not the thing that really worries me.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe thing that worries me is a lot more complicated and a lot more boring to talk about, because it\u2019s a lot more dense. The decline of democracy, the decline of human empathy. These companies are betting on the notion that they\u2019re going to take over the entire economy. That would be totalitarianism, and that would be really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continues, \u201cSimultaneously, these models are being trained to hijack your intimacy, to make friends with you, to get you to fall in love with it. We shouldn\u2019t be scared of an A.I. We should be concerned about the people building A.I.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Gordon-Levitt, a co-founder of Creators Coalition on A.I. and recently named one of Time magazine\u2019s 100 most influential \u201cinnovators, leaders, and thinkers\u201d on the topic, is asked to explain the \u201chuman-centric digital governance\u201d phrase in his U.N. title, the actor concedes \u201cit\u2019s sort of a mouthful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt just means that digital technology should be governed by people and for people,\u201d he says. \u201c\u2019A.I.\u2019 is nothing but algorithmically recombined, human-produced data. It\u2019s humans. Calling it artificial intelligence sort of decenters humans. It offers this kind of magical fictitious character, this A.I. that we\u2019ve seen in various sci-fi movies, but really \u2014 really all it is is us. It\u2019s us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn whether the \u201cslow-moving\u201d U.N. can force a \u201cfast-moving\u201d Silicon Valley to play by certain rules, Gordon-Levitt responds, \u201cTo be honest, this is one of the things that I have found sort of daunting or troubling. I don\u2019t know the answer. I think if it does take, say, seven years for the U.N. to put together an internationally agreed upon regulatory framework for A.I., then seven years from now we\u2019ll be glad that we started now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a new video interview for The New York Times, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, serving as the United Nations\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,73903,363,364,143905,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-626537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intellegence","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-joseph-gordon-levitt","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}