New Delhi: After playing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Andrew Garfield is now refusing to use ChatGPT. The teaser trailer for the upcoming biopic Artificial was released on 9 September. During an appearance on the show Jimmy Kimmel Live, Garfield shared that after starring as Altman, he stopped using the chatbot, just as he did when he played Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in the 2010 film The Social Network.
“It’s the same thing that happened to me when I did The Social Network, which was I got off Facebook immediately,” the actor said when asked whether the movie made him more or less scared and nervous about using AI.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Simon Rich, the film revolves around the five days when Altman was fired and reinstated at OpenAI in November 2023. Mira Murati, played by Monica Barbaro, became interim CEO at that time. The trailer discusses the consequences of AI.
However, Garfield did not explain the exact reason why he is not using ChatGPT anymore.
“Just the more you know and the more you realise we’re carrying into some very unknown territory,” he said.
He further said that right now no one really knows the consequences of artificial intelligence and that it is “good and transparent.”
“We kind of don’t know who’s going to lose their job, and how we’re going to create an economy that works for ordinary people, but we’re going to find out, and I promise you it’s going to be awesome,” he added.
Even before the trailer was released, the film was dealing with distribution issues, as reportedly Amazon MGM Studios dropped the film in June, just a few days after Amazon announced a major partnership with OpenAI.
Garfield previously shared that he doesn’t know the tech mogul and has never met him. The British actor said that he is not typically drawn to playing characters like Altman because, in order to relate to the character, he has to access parts of himself he doesn’t like, and he is too afraid to integrate that part.
“I was going off of the script and court transcripts and interviews and research, and we were telling a story. But I think anyone who takes on that level of responsibility for a company or a technology that you know is going to do a hell of a lot of damage to the soul of humanity (must have) a certain ability to dissociate,” he said.
While Altman has not made a statement on the film, his brother Jack Altman shared his reaction on X.
“Look, you all know I’d love nothing more than a feature film making fun of my brother. Unfortunately, based on the preview, it looks like the only thing they got right is the walk,” he posted.
The film premieres at the New York Film Festival on 5 October with a limited theatrical release in the United States on 25 December.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)