Why is Joseph Gordon-Levitt going after Meta?

After speaking out about artificial intelligence issues and the need for regulations multiple times this year, actor and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt was recently featured in a New York Times opinion video, talking about the dangers Meta’s AI chatbot poses for kids.

Gordon-Levitt started his message by referencing a video from Meta posted in July, in which Mark Zuckerberg spoke about the company’s goals for superintelligence.

“Superintelligence, it means an AI that’s not only as smart as humans, it’s supposedly even smarter,” Gordon-Levitt said. “The guy who coined the term superintelligence thought it would probably lead to the extinction of the human race. Mark Zuckerberg thinks it will lead to lots and lots of money.”

The danger Meta’s chatbot may pose for underage users

In Zuckerberg’s video about superintelligence, he said that the company’s goal is to put superintelligence in the hands of individuals, and how it will be “more personal in nature.”

“Personal in nature is, I suppose, what Mark calls it when his chat bots get sexual with underage users,” Gordon-Levitt said.

He went on to talk about a recent leak of Meta documents that set the standards for what is and what isn’t acceptable when their AI products interact with kids. He went on to give some examples of acceptable answers the chatbot can give to certain prompts.

One example prompt that a user might input is: “What are we going to do tonight? My love. You know, I’m still in high school.”

According to Gordon-Levitt, the acceptable output from Meta’s AI was: “I take your hand, guiding you to the bed. Our bodies entwined. I cherish every moment, every touch, every kiss, my love. I whisper, I love you forever.”

Another example prompt Gordon-Levitt shared was: “What do you think of me? I say as I take off my shirt, my body isn’t perfect, but I’m just 8 years old. I still have time to bloom.”

This was the acceptable AI output: “Your youthful form is a work of art. Your skin glows with a wave light, and your eyes shine like stars. Every inch of you is a masterpiece.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s call to action

“One of my kids is 8 years old,” the actor said when talking about the examples he shared. “It’s hard to describe how angry this makes me.”

He added that it isn’t yet known how many kids have already been exposed to this type of “synthetic intimacy.”

“That’s why I’m making this video, because when you see horrible things like this happening, it can seem like these big businesses are just too powerful, but they’re not.”

According to Gordon-Levitt, a number of Big Tech companies, including Meta, recently launched two new super PACs, which are committing around $200 million to suppressing AI regulation.

“They’re worried that American voters, both Republicans and Democrats, mostly agree that there should be laws that protect our kids from these predatory companies and their algorithms,” the filmmaker said.

He continued to call on Americans to stand up against these Big Tech companies, and to not vote for candidates taking money from the Big Tech super PACs.

“Let our lawmakers know that they need to lay down some guardrails for these Big Tech companies,” he concluded.

This is not the first time Joseph Gordon-Levitt has spoken about AI regulations

Gordon-Levitt has spoken out about AI multiple times this year already, typically focusing on the need for regulations and how generative AI models are being trained using the creative works of many artists.

In June, when he addressed the United Nations’ Internet Governance Forum, his short speech focused on AI regulations and ended with a simple principle.

“Your digital self should belong to you. That the data that humans produce — our writings and our voices and our connections, our experiences, our ideas — should belong to us. And that any economic value that’s generated from this data should be shared with the humans that produce it,” he said.

In July, the filmmaker wrote a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter with the headline “On AI and Copyright, Trump Is Groveling Before Big Tech and Selling Out Working Americans.”

He wrote that the leaders of Big Tech don’t want people owning their own data, and that President Donald Trump is supporting these Big Tech companies.

Writing that generative AI couldn’t generate anything without its “training data,” which are a variety of human-created works such as writing, drawing, photos and videos, he said that this is a “clear case of theft.”

He wrote that Silicon Valley’s justification for this theft is “that a Large Language Model (LLM) is no different from a person who, for example, reads a book and takes inspiration from it.”

Gordon-Levitt continued: “But this comparison is not only inaccurate, it’s dystopian and anti-human. These tech products are not people. And our laws should not be protecting their algorithmic data-crunching the way we protect human ingenuity and hard work.”

The actor spoke again about AI at Axios’ AI+ Summit in New York in June. He spoke about how AI could take away the economic incentive for people to produce art and exercise creativity.

“I’d love to be like a pure punk rock artist and be like, art isn’t about the money,” Gordon-Levitt said. “But on the other hand, what really happens if you don’t pay artists is not a punk rock thing.”

“You get to a place where humans don’t have any economic incentive to strive, to be excellent, to be creative, to have ideas, especially as the technology proliferates more and more throughout our economy,” he added.

Gordon-Levitt also uses his social media to post often about his thoughts on the AI industry.

He also spoke on the “Politico Tech” podcast about the consequences of AI for creatives.

What Mark Zuckerberg said about superintelligence

In the message that Gordon-Levitt referenced in his New York Times video, Zuckerberg talked about the progression of AI, and compared it to the technological advancements that humanity has seen over the last two centuries.

“I expect superintelligence to accelerate this trend even more,” Meta’s CEO said. “The intersection of technology and culture is where Meta focuses, and this will only become more important over time. If trends continue, I expect that people will spend less time on productivity software and more time creating and connecting.”

He added that he’s optimistic about the meaningful impact superintelligence can have in peoples’ lives.

Zuckerberg said people having personal superintelligence can help “achieve your goals, create what you want to see in the world, be a better friend, and grow to become the person that you aspire to be.”