Actor and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt is worried about who gets to control AI. In a New York Times video following his work at the United Nations, he warned that a handful of companies could gain enormous influence over our livelihoods and personal lives while the rest of us struggle to get a say.

“We shouldn’t be scared of an A.I.,” he said. “We should be concerned about the people building A.I.”

It is a pointed message from someone whose industry has supplied much of the imagery we use to picture this technology. Gordon-Levitt wants audiences to look past the fictional machines and watch the businesses selling the real ones.

The video shows Gordon-Levitt in his role as the U.N.’s global advocate for human-centric digital governance, a title he admitted is a mouthful. His core argument is that digital technology should be governed by people and for people.

The actor's worry is that a confused or disengaged public could stand by while fast-moving companies shape the future around their own profits.

“What we don’t want is a bunch of people confused or apathetic while these very fast-moving businesses design the future by themselves, just in the interests of their own profits,” he said.

That concern extends well beyond whether a particular chatbot gives a good answer. AI companies are building products meant to change how people work, search for information, create and communicate.

Gordon-Levitt argued that these firms are betting they can take over the entire economy, a scenario he described as “totalitarianism” that “would be really bad.”

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