Joseph Gordon-Levitt: "Not a punk rock thing" to use artists' work to train AI for free

What he's saying: "I'd love to be like a pure punk rock artist and be like, art isn't about the money," Gordon-Levitt told Axios' Ina Fried. "But on the other hand, what really happens if you don't pay artists is not a punk rock thing."

• He continued, "What happens is all the biggest corporate giants just own everything and control everything."

Zoom in: Gordon-Levitt argued it's a basic principle that when humans contribute or create something, or do anything that then makes money, there's economic value in it.

• He compared that principle to AI as an industry. "The data that we're using to train these AI models, the humans that produce that data, they own 0% of the economic value," he said.
• If the tech companies own 100% of that economic value, "where does that lead in the future?" he questioned.
• "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," the actor said.

The bottom line: A "gargantuan force" like YouTube, Gordon-Levitt said, could set a new standard by protecting creators instead of using their work to train AI without compensation.

• Massive companies like Google, he noted, could lead the way for others and say: "We want to be a platform where there still is an incentive for all these awesome creators who have made our platform what it is for the last two decades to keep creating."

Go deeper: Top moments from Axios' AI+ Summit in New York

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional details.