EXCLUSIVE: Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt Embraces 'Plurality' in Tech and Art | TaiwanPlus News

so I understand this is your first time in Taiwan what brings you here this time my first time ever in Taiwan I'm so happy to be here I was invited here by Audrey Tong uh whose book plurality has just come out it's one of my favorites that I've read in a long time it makes me optimistic about the future of technology and democracy and ways that I haven't felt in in years to be honest and uh when she invited me I jumped at the chances yeah well you shared the stage with her uh at the plurality Summit uh tell us some takeaways from the summit that you found speaking as an American uh in my country people's faith in democracy is at a low Point uh sadly enough people um don't believe as much in the institutions of democracy and the idea that the people can really be a part of governing themselves the whole idea of the United States of America and here in Taiwan we're seeing an example uh of people people genuinely legitimately having a say in what their government does the systems that Audrey has designed and implemented here in Taiwan I think have allowed people here to uh come together over their differences have productive discussions find consensus and and have those uh ideas ultimately make their way into government and policy it's incredible to see it's really uplifting for me if there any of the particular you know platforms or uh steps that Audrey had proposed that you'd like to see implemented back in the States yeah well for example social media that's coming out of Silicon Valley in the United States it really amplifies differences it amplifies people hating each other arguing with each other why because arguing and that kind of thing tends to make more money for their advertising models but the the the sort of equivalent social media systems that Audrey's put in place here in Taiwan actually amplify consensus you get more attention on the feed your your post is more likely to rise to the top on the social network if you're helping build Bridges not if you're helping tear the other one down and that kind of simple change can really make a big difference and when I first heard Audrey describing it I I found it so remarkable that I wanted to learn more so your company uh hit record actually produced a a pretty popular video here in Taiwan called Lost in Taiwan in 2020 that was a collaboration of 150 different artists uh tell us what does the process for a collaborative film like that look like well that that short film Lost in Taiwan it's funny people have have asked me here it was so welcome back to Taiwan because you shot that short film in Taiwan and in fact this is my first time here in Taiwan um and we did produce that short film but I wasn't here shooting it it was made in a different way on this online platform where people were coming together on our website and uh different people wrote different lines uh about their experience of Taiwan I think a lot of those writers were people from here who lived here um and then different actors would perform those lines and different people would shoot video around the country and contribute all of those things together and eventually they all got edited together into the the Montage short film yeah and the business model actually includes a way to kind of pay all of these people in a fair way do you want to tell us a little bit about that yeah it's one of the things that bothers me most about some of the the bigger internet platforms is we all contribute our data we contribute our content to these platforms and uh you know Facebook Etc they make lots of money by putting ads on our content that we created but uh they don't compensate um generally and you came out with this oped last year in the Washington Post saying that there needs to be more of a legal and Technical way for people to get paid for their contributions to these generative AI models now we're a year past that oped do you think we've gotten any closer to that kind of model I think we have gotten closer but we're certainly not there yet uh I I think we've gotten closer in that people are starting to take notice people are starting to pay attention and ask questions how are these AI models built oh everybody's data is going into these models well did they get everybody's permission for that and if they're making a bunch of money from these models are they going to pay the people whose data was used to build the models these questions I think are starting to be asked and asking the question is the first step to getting the answer uh do you have any other plans to make films in Taiwan I would love to yeah I'm well it's been really inspiring being here talking to Audrey and the enormous lovely community that she's introduced me to um the gov zero community and the V Taiwan community and um I I do think it would be uh really inspiring to make a film about some of these ideas and and these communities