Joseph Gordon-Levitt urges human control of AI in U.N. talk

In short: Joseph Gordon-Levitt told the United Nations that A.I. is made by people and should be governed by human choices, not treated as an unstoppable force.

What happened

Joseph Gordon-Levitt spoke at a U.N. gathering called Digital Cooperation Day. The event took place alongside the opening of the U.N. General Assembly’s 81st session.

The New York Times reported that Gordon-Levitt appeared as the U.N.’s first global advocate for “human-centric digital governance.” That phrase means putting people, not technology companies or machines, at the center of decisions about how digital tools are used.

In his remarks, he pushed back on language that describes A.I. as if it is a force of nature, like a storm you cannot stop. He argued that people build A.I. systems, and people can choose rules for how those systems are designed, used, and watched. “We need to remember who is at the center of that story, it’s us,” he said.

The wider meeting brought together diplomats, technology experts, business leaders, and academics. They discussed both the possible benefits and the risks of powerful A.I., including whether countries can work together to keep these systems under human control. Amandeep Singh Gill, the U.N.’s technology envoy, made a similar point that A.I. is not uncontrollable, because it is created by humans.

Why it matters

A.I. rules are often discussed as something each country or company handles on its own. This event shows a growing push to talk about shared international guardrails, and how the public can have a say in decisions that may affect jobs, safety, and privacy.

Source: NYTimes