Do we like them?Do we like Joseph Gordon-Levitt?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Consistent public advocacy on AI, creators and child safety, with one contested episode: attending two conferences tied to Peter Thiel.
The latest drama is the Dialog affair. After Wired and The Hollywood Reporter published names tied to Peter Thiel's off-the-record conference, Gordon-Levitt confirmed on Instagram that he'd attended two events, and said he had never met Thiel or dealt with his representatives.
His defence was that the gatherings weren't a single ideological crowd and that it's sometimes productive to engage with people you oppose. He followed up saying he has “absolutely no sympathy for or association with Thiel”. Some fans weren't sold, but nothing in the reporting shows him backing Thiel's politics.
On the harm check, the record is clean on the usual red flags. Nothing turned up in my searches where he's pushed conspiracy theories, attacked LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants, or cosied up to the culture-war crowd. If anything he's been punching the other way, at tech giants. That's why Dialog gets an asterisk and not a mark of shame.
His big cause now is AI. In December 2025 he asked why the companies building the tech shouldn't have to follow any laws, while saying he wants a middle ground, not no AI. In late September 2025 he went after Meta over its chatbots and children, saying the company's algorithms are designed to prey on kids.
It's turned into a proper role. In March 2026 he was named the United Nations' global advocate for human-centric digital governance, a voluntary, public-facing post. In January he joined more than 700 artists, including Scarlett Johansson and Cate Blanchett, in a campaign against tech firms using copyrighted work without permission.
He's also putting his money where his mouth is on screen. His next film as director is a near-future AI thriller for Netflix, with Rachel McAdams, Jeff Daniels and Joel Edgerton, backed by Rian Johnson's company. It's reportedly his second feature as director after Don Jon, and it paints AI in a negative light.