Latest news with #JosephGordon-Levitt
Scoop
4 days ago
- Business
- Scoop
Global Digital Cooperation In Focus As 20th Internet Governance Forum Concludes In Norway
Lillestrøm, Norway, 27 June 2025 — The 20th annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) concluded today in Lillestrøm, Norway, celebrating two decades of advancing open, inclusive, and secure digital development. Hosted by the Government of Norway in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), this milestone gathering brought together more than 9,000 participants onsite and online from across the globe, including policymakers, civil society leaders, academics, youth, and the private sector. In his opening remarks earlier in the week, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres reflected on the significance of the occasion, noting: 'Two decades ago, digital cooperation was a bold aspiration. Today, it is an absolute necessity – and a shared responsibility.' He also highlighted the recent adoption of the Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact, which recognized the Internet Governance Forum as the primary multistakeholder platform for digital governance issues. This year's IGF welcomed high-level participation from governments, especially from Africa and the Global South, alongside representatives from leading technology companies including Meta, OpenAI, and TikTok. Actor and producer Joseph Gordon-Levitt also took part, engaging in discussions that explored the creative and ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence. Through its inclusive multistakeholder format, the IGF provided a trusted platform for open dialogue and cooperation on the world's most pressing digital issues. In his closing statement, Li Junhua, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, emphasized that as we look toward the General Assembly's review of the IGF mandate this December, 'We have a critical opportunity to reaffirm and re-energize the IGF's role as the global home for inclusive dialogue and digital policies.' He further underscored that 'ensuring safe and secure deployment of digital technologies is a shared responsibility—and a critical priority—for the global multistakeholder community. We must deliver it.' Held under the overarching theme 'Building Digital Governance Together,' the Forum featured more than 260 sessions over five days. Discussions covered critical areas such as data governance, emerging technologies, cybersecurity, universal connectivity, digital rights, and the future of global digital cooperation. Karianne Tung, Minister of Digitalisation and Public Governance of Norway, remarked in her closing statement, 'We are proud that this year's Internet Governance Forum, hosted in Norway, has laid a strong foundation for the forthcoming WSIS+20 process. A continued, permanent, and strengthened IGF mandate will be vital in shaping the future of global digital governance. I extend my sincere gratitude to all stakeholders who engaged in vibrant, thoughtful discussions here in Norway, and who played a key role in the success of IGF 2025.' A key outcome of the Forum was the Lillestrøm IGF Messages, which reflect shared priorities and recommendations from IGF participants. These Messages offer actionable guidance for policymakers, focusing on digital governance, human rights online, the opportunities and risks of digital innovation, and the role of digital technologies in advancing peace, sustainability, and development. Throughout the week, participants underscored the urgent need to address rising challenges in the digital landscape. Concerns were raised about the erosion of digital trust, driven by the rapid spread of misinformation, disinformation, and malicious content. The emergence of generative AI has made it easier to produce convincing yet false content, exacerbating the risks—particularly for young people who increasingly rely on digital platforms for information and interaction. About the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) The Internet Governance Forum, convened by the United Nations Secretary-General, is the global multistakeholder platform for dialogue on digital public policy. Its annual meeting brings together thousands of participants from governments, civil society, business, academia, and the technical community to exchange knowledge, share good practices, and collaborate on solutions to the world's most pressing digital governance challenges. For more information, visit:
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Joseph Gordon-Levitt Argues 'Your Digital Self Should Belong To You' At UN Internet Forum
Addressing this week's UN Internet Governance Forum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt said he wanted to focus on one basic principle. 'Your digital self should belong to you. That the data that humans produce — or writings and our voices and the connections that the make, 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 a short speech. More from Deadline Joseph Gordon-Levitt Directing AI Thriller For Rian Johnson's T-Street; Anne Hathaway To Star Judge Rules For Meta In AI Lawsuit Brought By Sarah Silverman And Other Authors, But Warns Of Illegally Using Copyrighted Works In Training Models Prime Video Is Increasingly Using Generative AI To Enhance In-App Viewing - Here's Where To Expect The Tech From Live Recaps To Language Dubbing A little shot of hope and optimism today from the United Nations. I got to speak about AI at their annual Internet Governance Forum (my first time at a UN thing 🤩) and it really does feel good to see so many people from so many places around the world convening in good faith to… — Joseph Gordon-Levitt (@hitRECordJoe) June 26, 2025 Of course, that very concept is being mulled right now in Hollywood and being litigated between content producers and tech giants. Just yesterday, a federal judge ruled that Meta's unauthorized use of copyrighted works from Sarah Silverman and other authors to train generative AI models is a 'fair use,' but warned that the practice may in many circumstances be illegal. The actual impacts of AI, said Gordon-Levitt in a fireside chat at the UN Forum, could be very broad. 'I think that the impact could mean that creativity as we know it sort of goes away, to be really honest. I hate to put it in grave terms. That's a worst-case scenario, but I think it's on the table. I don't think it has to happen that way. I think if we all figure out how to steer the ship, so to speak, the technology could be a wonderful thing for creativity, and we're sort of at that crossroads right now.' Watch the actor's fireside chat at the event below. AI and its impacts are familiar terrain for Gordon-Levitt. Late last year, Deadline broke the news that he was set to direct an untitled AI thriller for T-Street Productions, the production company of Rian Johnson & Ram Bergman, with Anne Hathaway set to star. And for more than a decade, the actor has run a company in the digital space; HitRecord is an online collaborative media platform he founded with his brother Dan. Best of Deadline 'The Buccaneers' Season 2 Soundtrack: From Griff To Sabrina Carpenter 'The Buccaneers' Season 2 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? 'Nine Perfect Strangers' Season 2 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out?
Axios
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: "Not a punk rock thing" to use artists' work to train AI for free
Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt said there needs to be an incentive to keep creatives paid and employed as AI disrupts the entertainment business at Axios' AI+ Summit in New York on Wednesday. The big picture: Even though many tech firms won't say it, their generative AI models have been trained on existing art including movies and books — and controversially without compensation.
Axios
01-05-2025
- Automotive
- Axios
April 23, 2025 Joann Muller
It's Wednesday and I'm feeling nostalgic. Remember when you were a kid, riding in the back seat, and you'd pump your arm to get passing truck drivers to blow their horns? Now that trucks are going driverless, who will toot the horn for your grandkids? 🤔 🍎 Mark your calendars: Axios returns to NYC during #NYTechWeek for our AI+ NY summit on Weds., June 4, featuring actor/filmmaker/entrepreneur Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela, and more. Interested in joining? Let us know here. Let's get truckin' ..... 1,420 words, a 5.5-minute read. 1 big thing: Driverless trucks are here Drivers along a 200-mile stretch of I-45 between Dallas and Houston should get ready for something new: The semi-truck in the next lane might not have anyone in the driver's seat. Why it matters: Autonomous trucking companies have been testing their fleets on Texas highways for several years, but always with backup safety drivers in the cab. Now, one company, Aurora Innovation, says it plans to go completely driverless, a key milestone that promises to reshape the trucking industry. Driving the news: After years of development, Pittsburgh-based Aurora is launching driverless operations this month on a popular freight route between Dallas and Houston. The first autonomous truck is expected to roll down I-45 in the coming days, although Aurora officials declined to share any details. The company has said it will begin slowly, with one truck, and will gradually expand the fleet over time. The big picture: Trucking is the backbone of the American economy, yet the industry is strained by high driver turnover rates, supply chain inefficiencies and rising costs. Autonomous trucks can help alleviate these challenges, advocates say. Critics, however, worry about inadequate safety oversight, cybersecurity threats and job reductions. What they're saying:"Everybody is looking at the same economics," Jeff Farrah, CEO of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, tells Axios. "The federal government is saying we have to move 50% more freight by 2050, but there's a shortage of drivers. How do I solve this puzzle with more freight to move and less drivers to do it?" The other side: Members of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are skeptical of AV trucking companies' safety claims, especially since there are no federal regulations for AVs. "It's absurd that AVs, which are unproven and unmanned, are given more latitude on American highways than professional drivers with years of experience like me are given," Lewie Pugh, the group's executive vice president, said in an interview. Where it stands: While the number of robotaxi companies has shrunk, at least 10 companies are developing driverless technology for trucks. Most expect to "pull the driver" — or go fully autonomous — on public roads later this year or sometime in 2026. They all plan to begin in Texas, known for its vital freight corridors, favorable regulatory policies and good weather. Kodiak Robotics, which intends to go public soon, says it has already surpassed 750 hours of driving on private roads across West Texas' Permian Basin without a human driver on board. How it works: Most AV companies plan to license their driverless technology to truck manufacturers. Those manufacturers then sell or lease the automated trucks to fleet customers. Under this "driver-as-a-service" model, those fleet customers pay for virtual drivers by the mile, but still manage their own logistics operations. Between the lines: Trucking and logistics providers have strong financial incentives for automation. The industry has struggled to attract enough long-haul drivers, despite big incentives, because of the grueling nature of the job. Without driver salaries, fleet operators could reduce their operating costs per mile by as much as 42 percent, according to a McKinsey analysis, even with the added costs of the AV technology and new operations centers to monitor the trucks remotely. What to watch: Autonomous heavy-duty trucks will account for 13 percent of trucks on U.S. roads in 2035, according to McKinsey projections. 2. How safe is safe enough? Teenagers have to pass a driving test before they can get a license. For autonomous vehicles, the standard of achievement is when it's better than a human driver. Why it matters: Absent federal regulations on autonomy, AV companies are essentially self-regulated. They get to decide when "safe" is "safe enough," which is hard to prove and naturally leaves room for interpretation. "Just trust us" isn't very convincing to the majority of Americans who are afraid of self-driving technology, according to a AAA survey. Driving the news: Aurora says it won't launch its driverless trucks until its safety case is fully closed. A safety case is a structured argument of claims, with supporting evidence, that companies use to show how and why an autonomous vehicle is safe enough to deploy on public roads. Each company's safety case is unique, based on the specific vehicle and where and how it would operate. In the case of Aurora, the safety case for launching driverless operations from Dallas to Houston was 99% complete as of the end of January, the company said recently. Between the lines: Aurora's safety case framework is explained in its voluntary safety self-assessment that all AV companies are encouraged to file regularly with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These voluntary filings are an effort to build public trust through transparency, but they can vary in depth and rigor; some read like marketing brochures. Gatik, an AV company focused on "middle-mile" logistics (such as between warehouses), enlisted a third-party auditor to validate its safety case in an effort to set a new benchmark for transparency, beyond self-certification. The bottom line: Transparency and data could help build trust in autonomous vehicles, but given consumers' persistent fears about self-driving technology, it's going to take time. 3. Musk: "Millions" of autonomous Teslas in 2026 Elon Musk expects that millions of Teslas will be driving autonomously by the latter half of 2026. In the meantime, the company aims to launch a modest robotaxi pilot with just a handful of cars in Austin, Texas, starting in June. Why it matters: Tesla no longer sees itself as an electric vehicle company, but rather an AI-driven robotics company focused on large-scale production of autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. Yes, but: The Tesla CEO has been predicting a million robotaxis on the road since 2019. While Tesla's been talking about it, Waymo already has a robotaxi service that provides more than 200,000 rides per week in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix. In 2024, it racked up more than 4 million paid passenger trips. Driving the news: During a call Tuesday to review Tesla's disappointing first-quarter financial results, Musk encouraged investors "to look beyond the bumps and potholes of the road immediately ahead of us," and instead focus on the future. "The team and I are laser-focused on bringing robotaxi to Austin in June," he said, with more cities to be added later this year. The plan is to launch the service in Austin with 10 or 20 Model Ys, not with the much-ballyhooed Cybercab that Tesla unveiled last October. Tesla is piloting a new, more automated manufacturing process for Cybercab, with large-scale production expected next year. The intrigue: Musk acknowledged during the call that his government-slashing work in the Trump administration has sparked a "blowback" against Tesla and that he would spend less time with DOGE, and more time with Tesla starting in May. 4. Drive-thru 📸: 5. What I'm driving: 2025 Toyota Camry With tariffs expected to drive up the price of imported cars, the Kentucky-built Camry is a solid choice — affordable, dependable and surprisingly stylish, considering its rather stodgy reputation. What's new: All Camrys are now hybrids. You can't buy a gasoline version anymore. Key stats: The Camry gets up to 51 miles per gallon in the LE front-wheel-drive model. The all-wheel-drive XLE version I drove got 44 mpg. Pricing starts at $29,835, but the higher-trim model I drove started at almost $35,000. With a premium option package, it topped out just over $41,000.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Joseph Gordon-Levitt on emailing his fans, hating the algorithm and why he still loves '500 Days of Summer'
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has long enjoyed a stellar acting career, but he hasn't lost interest in connecting with his fans on a more meaningful level. In 2005, the 500 Days of Summer actor launched HitRecord, an Emmy-winning online creator forum with hundreds of thousands of members. There, he shared art with his audience and invited them to collaborate. That kind of interaction doesn't happen much these days with celebrities and their fans, and Gordon-Levitt says social media's ever-changing algorithms are to blame. They've sucked the community element out of the online world, instead incentivizing attention-grabbing. That's why he started his free Substack newsletter, Joe's Journal, this year — so people can get his musings about "media, technology, creativity [and] the end of civilization" delivered directly to their email inboxes. He spoke to Yahoo Entertainment about his pivot, his crusade to protect artists from AI and the legacy of his biggest onscreen role. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Tell us about your decision to launch Joe's Journal. I'm super grateful I get to do the work that I do in the traditional entertainment industry, but there is something you don't get from participating in old-school media — an immediacy and interactivity and direct connection to a community of people. That's what I was always working toward with HitRecord. For a long time, social media gave that to me, but it doesn't anymore. People are upset that a very partisan person now owns Twitter, but that's not actually what's done it. I've been less and less involved with social media since before Elon Musk acquired Twitter. It's the algorithms! The way these platforms are now driven by attention-maximizing algorithms, it forces [interaction] through this lens of, 'Pay attention to me! Pay attention to me!' And that doesn't feel good to me. I don't get the joy out of it that I used to. Starting this journal on Substack is, in a lot of ways, a return to what I've always loved doing. The earliest version of HitRecord was me just posting things: I would write, or do videos, or make little pieces of music or stories or whatever. Then I'd just get them out directly without all the time and structure in traditional entertainment. With Substack, you're not going through this attention-maximizing algorithm. It's much simpler and more direct and feels like a genuine connection to a community of human beings that I care about. You have a lovely relationship with your fans. A lot of artists and creators these days have raised concerns that their fans might develop parasocial relationships with them, feeling closer to them than they are in reality because of social media. Have your boundaries with your audience changed over time? It's something I've always thought about. The difference is that now that these social media platforms have become toxic with their algorithms. As far as being accessible to a community of people, I've always felt really good about that. There are boundaries. I love sharing art and creativity and collaborating on stuff with people. That's of course very personal and very intimate, but I never want to feel like my personal life is a performance for an audience. I want to have my personal life for myself, and then I make my stuff, whatever you want to call it: art, creativity or entertainment. I just refuse to call it content because I think that word is gross. In one of your Substack newsletters, you wrote about how AI companies are trying to use the work of artists without paying them for it. You wrote about that for the Washington Post in 2023 as well. Do you think any progress has been made there? Yes, there has been progress — namely that these companies have just been sued over and over again by the people whose data they've stolen. None of the lawsuits have been decided yet, so we'll see what the courts say. In the meantime, a lot of it also has to do with people just being aware of how technology actually works. You hear the words artificial intelligence, and what it sounds like that these companies figured out how to make some kind of robot god that's intelligent and can do all these things that are amazing. But that's not actually what's happening. A ton of data that is produced by people are just sucked into these AI models, then the models rejigger the numbers and probabilistically generate these outputs. There's no intelligence there other than the intelligence that humans had, whose data got stolen. I feel like whatever small part I can play is trying to help people know what's actually happening, because once you tell people that's what's happening, they're like, 'Oh! Common sense! Obviously, people deserve compensation and to give their consent if they're using their stuff!' This is about so much more than just movies and entertainment because so many jobs in the future — maybe even everyone's jobs — will be impacted by this same principle. If a human does something valuable, do they deserve to be compensated for it? Or are these gigantic tech companies who have the biggest computer clusters just allowed to take whatever the human did and suck it into their AI model and say, 'Oh well, now we get to make money and we don't have to pay!' Something I spent a lot of time posting about on the internet in my early career as a writer was your movie It flips the script on the usual rom-com and makes people think deeply about their expectations for love. What do you think the movie's legacy is after all these years? I love that movie. It's one of my favorite things I've ever gotten to do. It's one of a handful of projects that I got to be a part of that still moves people a lot. And it moved me, for sure — not just because I was in it! I've experienced heartbreak before in my life, and I think so many of us do. It's easy to blame the other person. To me, the lesson of 500 Days of Summer is that you have to look at yourself. What's going on with you? What are the things that you maybe need to grow up about, rather than pointing the finger at whoever dumped you? The irony is, of course, that people still come up to me and say, 'That Summer, she's so terrible for dumping you!' I always say to them, 'Watch it again, because Tom deserves everything he got!'
