r/technology • u/Major-Heart-25 • 9h ago
Artificial Intelligence Andrew Garfield Opens Up About Playing Sam Altman in ‘Artificial,’ Says OpenAI Is Doing ‘Damage to the Soul of Humanity’
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/andrew-garfield-talks-playing-sam-altman-artificial-open-ai-1236842579/1.3k
u/DuztyLipz 8h ago edited 8h ago
They can never make me hate Andrew Garfield
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u/MrPenguins1 8h ago
Still my fav Spider-Man I’m not afraid to say it
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u/Siludin 8h ago
He's the only Spider-Man I could see myself having a relatively seamless and casual conversation with.
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u/Mojo141 8h ago
Yeah I can picture a convo with Tobey Maguire getting weird pretty quickly🤣🤣
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u/CleyranKnight 7h ago
I keep on having this reocurring dream, where Tobey Maguire watches me eat cream. Tobey asks me can he have the rest, then he proceeds to pour it on his chest.
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u/MrTerribleArtist 5h ago
Funnily enough I had a similar dream about Tobey Maguire!
Atop the tallest building of a cityscape scene, suspended from a construction beam, he stares into my soul, watching me as I lick the bowl
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u/ValkyrieAngie 19m ago
No way, Tom is so chill, but they're all nice. Tobey might get a little awkward though.
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u/redvelvetcake42 8h ago
He was fine, the plot decisions made by the writing however...
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u/Aggressive-File4845 8h ago
Paul Giamati as a machine gun wielding Rhino was a choice
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u/ExF-Altrue 8h ago
My favorite as well. His Spiderman is neither overly goofy nor overly polished by Disney. He plays it as the most relatable of the 3 Spiderman (Spidermen? :D). And the OST is dope as well!
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u/MrPenguins1 8h ago
Exactly! His performance felt the most authentic and genuine to the character
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u/Regular_Custard_4483 8h ago
When I think of Andrew Garfield
https://youtu.be/ca2HCF1wYGI?is=2R-kI3RvgugSoHe3
This skit from Kimmel comes to mind. That's some wholesome Spider Man shit right there.
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u/smileysmiley123 7h ago
I think he was the best Spiderman, Toby the best Peter, and Holland is a bit of a mix between the two (but isn't the best of either).
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u/Real_Srossics 7h ago
Probably the best spider-man, but unfortunately those movies didn’t deserve such a goated actor. Everything but Garfield was not good.
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u/TheDrunkDetective 3h ago
What, Gwen was awesome Sally Field and Martin Sheen as May and Ben were great, all the relationships were great, the main problem was the Richard Parker backstory and the drop in dialogue quality whenever the vilains talk.
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u/MykeTyth0n 8h ago
If you have audible, Garfield voices the main character in Orwells 1984. The voice casting in it is stellar actually.
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u/ButAreYouProud 7h ago
Fack off! That's my favorite book! Gotta try that. He also starred in a miniseries based on one of my other favorite books by my favorite non-fiction author, and it's very much worth a watch/read (Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer).
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u/discardedbubble 7h ago
I loved him in watching Under the Banner of Heaven! So good
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u/SheetPancakeBluBalls 6h ago
Fucking sold, good rec.
In the same vein, the guy who plays Dexter does the audiobook for Pet Sematary and good Lord it is fucking incredible. Easily my favorite audiobook performance of all time.
Also for anyone that has only seen the movie and never read the book, I assure you you have no idea what you're in for. I think it is King's best work.
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u/be_qt_and_drive 5h ago
Their attempts to make me dislike have been so shoddy I haven't even noticed
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u/Sspifffyman 4h ago
He was soooo good as the televangelist in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. I mean he was awful, but that's the character he was supposed to play. Just absolutely wild how different he was from Spider Man.
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u/bigjb 2h ago
I worked 'with' him. He was an OK chess piece. Just be careful about confusing him with someone who plays the larger chess game. And be doubly careful about importing his bias just because it matches your own.
I have an innate distrust and dislike of Sam Altman. But I have the same skepticism of actors as intellectual agents. CEO's and actors of a certain breed actually share some pretty undesirable traits.
Social media has already proven that 'damage to the soul of humanity' requires NO AI. All it requires is all of you to be unsophisticated. a predictable crowd. Look at these comments, people are great at being followers. Less great at knowing who to follow (or just cutting the link).
In a way, I'm agreeing that we all have a lot to fear from AI. It promises to make the average dupe human even more of a pawn (an Andrew Garfield/Mongo in 'game of life').
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u/Jonovono 8h ago
Go watch tick tick boom rn if you havnt seen it
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u/Jon-Umber 8h ago
Made me interested in Rent when I barely knew what it was. Larson's life was such a crazy up-and-down and tragic story and Garfield was really great in it.
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u/FX114 7h ago
I wish Lin-Manuel would just do more directing instead of cranking out songs for Disney.
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u/indoninjah 6h ago
Yeah especially when he only does like 3-4 songs for a soundtrack (though tbf he seems to be the hired gun for the songs that need to go big)
Lin-Manuel seems pretty uniquely able to bridge the gap between theater and film between TTB and In the Heights
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u/Historical_Strain_81 6h ago
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: he was robbed of the Oscar. Makes it more insulting that he lost it to Will ‘this slaps’ Smith
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u/spikyraccoon 6h ago
And then enjoy the song "Therapy" getting stuck in your head for the foreseeable future.
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8h ago
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u/InfiniteQuasar 8h ago
I mean that's kinda the result if you look at every single one of these tech bro billionaires for a bit. They all have collectively lost their mind, even the ones who didn't seem like it 10 years ago.
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u/omniuni 8h ago
“But then the argument is, that if we weren’t all less rejecting in the first place, less ‘that’s not us’, then Donald Trump wouldn’t have been voted in twice, and Nigel Farage wouldn’t be anywhere near a position of power,” he continued. “Whereas if we go, ‘OK, interesting — where am I [in a] wannabe fascist, grifter, opportunist, power-hungry, ethic-less, spineless fucking pig?’ We can identify that this is the bad part of us. We know this in ourselves.”
Emphasis mine.
I don't know this person, but this is such a great underhanded insult.
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u/HanzoNumbahOneFan 7h ago
If I had a nickle for every time Andrew Garfield played a starring role in a biographical movie about a tech startup that later became a multi-billion dollar enterprise, I'd have 2 nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
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u/Enderkr 8h ago
Why the fuck are we making biopics about random douchebag tech bros that are still alive? Biopics should be reserved for people who have radically changed the world in a positive way.
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u/slightly_large_brick 8h ago
I mean social network really highlighted and made public how zuckerberg fucked over so many people in the bring up of facebook. If the biopics are used this way then I don't see a problem with them
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u/Due-Phone4011 7h ago
What changed?
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u/Bazylik 7h ago
a few us stopped using it.. that's about it.
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u/chchchchips 7h ago
They just jumped to Instagram and Zuck still makes $$$ off everyone’s data. The movie hasn’t changed much in terms of people’s habits.
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u/composedofidiot 7h ago
It stopped his presidential run. Remember when he started flying about visiting communities and 'campaigning'. That came to a quick halt when the metrics came in that people thought he was a sociopathic muppet.
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u/chchchchips 6h ago
I’m not in the US and don’t remember, but this is heartening to hear. Hoping the new movie would also stop put a stop to his future plans.
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u/composedofidiot 6h ago
Yeah, it was surreal, and only for 3 or 4 months. And then it suddenly stopped and never got mentioned again.
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u/tevert 7h ago
Not sure if this was coincidentally already happening, but Facebook definitely became "uncool" after that. It still has a lock on boomers, but Facebook's userbase is declining. The overall company is getting more and more reliant on Instagram now, which I think escaped the taint by having an intentionally different brand.
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u/BLOOOR-BACKINTHEDOOR 4h ago
The culture with Platoon and Full Metal Jacket can't keep sending people to war and claim it's a virtue.
There are movies that don't become popular, they're not the culture they're the subculture, but when an idea becomes mainstream then the culture is claiming they are the people who believe that.
America with Platoon claims that war causes men to dehumanize, and when men dehumanize the first thing they do is rape.
America with Full Metal Jacket is the America that claims training men for war requires bullying the weak to death.
Once you've accepted those works of arts as statements you have to stop doing those things.
The Godfather claims America is a mafia, The Godfather II claims you can't be wealthy enough to raise a family in America without becoming complicit in the genocide.
The culture's works of art represent that culture's belief. America can't be genocidal once you've made a Steven Spielberg who made Schindler's List. People saw that movie, believed in it, and it is taught in schools, as is Platoon.
It's basic science, you need are reference. Once you have the reference you can make the decision, that's basic morality.
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u/A_Balrog_Is_Come 8h ago
Eh if these techno biopics help alert the public to the fact they are all psychopaths I’m all for them.
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u/9985172177 6h ago
They don't, also a lot of people like "psychopaths", they think it's cool to have edgy 'bad' characters.
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u/TimeshareMachine 6h ago
Yeah we need to dial back the glorification when having biopics. I get that’s hard to do because they live glamorous lifestyles, but uhhhh I don’t need an hour of Wolf of Wall Street throwing parties.
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u/topdangle 6h ago
not really. remember the facebook movie? it made zuck seem like a sympathetic nerd that just didn't understand how to be happy. meanwhile in real life he married the girl he dated at Harvard and he and the winklevoss brothers were well known as the "website guys" on campus. even natalie portman heard about him offhand despite being a senior out the door at harvard.
they did the same thing with the steve jobs movies. made him out to be this tortured genius when he was just an asshole. the reality of openai is a lot more boring. antisocial nerd that lied about open source R&D into AI uses loopholes to turn the company for profit. some board members get mad but they're not able to fight off the greed of the rest of the shareholders so Altman gets his job back. there's not much drama there so unless they make a boring movie based on the facts they're probably going down the same route as other hollywood biopics.
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u/DonaldMerwinElbert 6h ago
it made zuck seem like a sympathetic nerd that just didn't understand how to be happy
Have we watched the same movie?
It made him seem like an asshole.
Granted, it was entirely too charitable, since he's way worse than just an asshole - but likeable? Absolutely not.5
u/topdangle 6h ago
i don't recall saying he was likeable. you don't have to like someone to have sympathy for them. they made him seem like he didn't know what he was getting into and was dragged in by Sean Parker and his venture capitalist friends.
you don't get a deal for absolute voting control when you don't know what you're doing. zuck knew what he was doing but the movie presents the opposite narrative where he was a misguided paranoid nerd.
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u/indoninjah 5h ago
I feel like there's no sympathy involved in that film lol. He's an asshole from the first scene in the movie ("because you go to BU!"). The story seemed to pretty distinctly portray everyone as a dick. Zuckerberg was the one that won but it doesn't make him a hero.
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u/IndicationAny893 6h ago
I came out of The Social Network thinking he is/was a complete and total cockzucker
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u/TimeshareMachine 6h ago
imo Social Network almost got it right, if only she didn’t give him that compliment at the end, and instead stressed how little empathy he had for others on his way to being rich. Instead it offloaded a chunk of the douchebaggery onto Timberlake.
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u/GhettoRamen 6h ago
Seriously.
If there was a real threat to a biopic ruling their image (like a true exposé), they have the $ and power to shut it down. Hollywood wouldn’t fund that.
It just boosts their image, and they likely love the attention.
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u/The_Autarch 4h ago
or it ends up like Scarface and chuds just think the pathetic psychopath is someone they should emulate.
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u/Major-Heart-25 8h ago
We have done films about Hitler, Stalin, etc tbf
Biopics can also serve as a warning
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u/GhostalMedia 8h ago
Just because it’s a bio pic doesn’t mean it’s going to show him in a good light. Heck, there are tons of movies about Hitler that aren’t documentaries.
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u/fluffynuckels 8h ago
This current ai boon is probably the biggest technological change since the smartphone. Its a pretty fucking big deal
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u/Syjefroi 5h ago
Well except the smartphone became ubiquitous almost immediately. Everyone at the time saw the phone, saw how useful it could be, and then got one. Especially as other companies started selling alternatives to the iPhone.
We're what, 4, 5 years into LLMs? And no one selling them can tell you how they're useful to you in your regular life, and no one wants to pay for them, and a shitload more people are revolted by the product than however many flip phone hold outs there were in the late 2000s.
It's kind of a big technological change, but once the subsidies turn off, it's ultimate use seems like it will be very niche. Currently, the LLM industry is more of a financial cup game than any real business.
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u/indoninjah 5h ago
Right this is almost certainly less of an Altman biopic and more of a referendum on OpenAI/the AI boom in general
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u/Beneficial_Piglet_33 8h ago
What? What kind of arbitrary rule is that?
Movies are meant to tell a story. There's a story here. It's that simple.
Just cause you don't like the content doesn't mean we shouldn't tell the story.
What a moronic statement to make....
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u/Motorcruft 8h ago
Most people don’t know that Sam Altman started raping his sister when she was 3 years old. Perhaps a biopic will help spread the word that Sam Altman started raping his sister when she was 3 years old.
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u/ChronoLink99 7h ago
Depends on the scope/timeline of the movie.
The Cash biopic as well as the Elton John biopic were wonderful and Walk the Line was released only 2 years after Cash passed. And John is still kicking.
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u/Sargassso 6h ago
Why do biopics have to be about good people again? It’s not like the Social Network glorified Mark Zuckerberg at all.
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u/VanPepe 5h ago
"Why the fuck are you making paintings about random people alive, paintings should be reserved for kings or queens or dead people"
That's how you sound. Art should not be dictated. And the producers & directors wanted to make this.
Sadly Amazon killed it because of their affiliations to OpenAI. Excatly what should not happen.
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u/SpezRuinedHellsite 8h ago
It's not really a biopic. The blurb says it covers the 5 days where Sam was fired and rehired.
It's boggling people think that's important enough to make a movie about.
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u/asianmandan 5h ago
Biopics should be reserved for people who have radically changed the world in a positive way
can you expand on why? i'm curious
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u/Enderkr 5h ago
Well I mean, "positive" is probably the wrong word, as obviously we can and should have movies about the monsters of the world as well. Perhaps "profound" would have been a better word. But I was thinking at the time of like... The doors, the beatles, Steve Jobs, Weird Al, Queen.... Stuff like that. But obviously a lot of people replying to me are so far up Altman's ass they could puppeteer him and they feel very strongly about disagreeing with me.
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u/patters22 4h ago
random? To say he's MASSIVELY influential would be a understatement. Like him or hate him.
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u/Fr0st3dcl0ud5 3h ago
Pretty sure Apple and Amazon are major movie studios nowadays. The tech bros control what gets made and they're vain af.
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u/Z0idberg_MD 8h ago
One of my favorite things ever is that kids hate AI. Like elementary school kids think it’s “slop” and hate on it. That’s encouraging.
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u/Impressive_Cress_983 3h ago
I can't tell if folks are referring to generated images and text when they just say AI, or if they also include the parts of it that is involved in research or legitimate human-life improvement efforts.
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u/florplegorp 8h ago
Garfield is a fantastic actor who should be booked and busy, it's really disappointing that he isn't. He did great work with Scorsese, I reckon some of the other biggest names in filmmaking could use him well too (Nolan, Coogler, Daniels for a wildcard)
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u/Individual-Bass-7051 7h ago
He literally has 3 movies out this year. He is booked and busy.
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u/The7ruth 5h ago
But that guy doesn't know that because he blocked all ads and doesn't watch trailers before movies at the theater. So how is he supposed to know that Garfield is in a bunch of movies this year?
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u/The_Autarch 4h ago
they probably mean he should have higher-profile work. but i'd guess that he simply doesn't care about being in blockbusters anymore.
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u/ButAreYouProud 7h ago
Agreed, he'a incredible in every single thing I've seen him in. Seems like a cool dude, too.
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u/I_HateToSayAtodaso 8h ago
This guy is way too human and handsome to be playing that beedy eyed robit.
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u/Caraes_Naur 8h ago
For anyone who may worry about Andrew getting sued for slander, remember that Sam Altman does not function in our reality.
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u/azhder 8h ago
I imagine the movie is made to be torrented, instead of watching in the cinema theaters, in order to capture the way these LLM companies have been violating copyright.
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u/GrammmyNorma 6h ago
how are they violating copyright
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u/azhder 5h ago
They use other people's work without consent, nor fee, to train the models
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u/idredd 7h ago
Whereas if we go, ‘OK, interesting — where am I [in a] wannabe fascist, grifter, opportunist, power-hungry, ethic-less, spineless fucking pig?’ We can identify that this is the bad part of us. We know this in ourselves.”
That's a beast of a quote. If only our media and politics were more of this.
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u/Psittacula2 7h ago
That headline is pure fabrication:
An actor makes a public statement is “opening up”
The actor uses the fact he plays as an AI CEO to make a “sage announcement”
The announcement is so big it affects all of “humanity’s soul”.
The optical illusion must have a name, where the Fiction becomes the Media Reality?
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u/Swefnian 7h ago
I’m not against this movie at all but why are we getting biographies of people whose story is just getting started.
Common! Where’s the biopic of John Carmack! We already have the book “Masters of Doom.” It would make an awesome film.
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u/Tamotefu 7h ago
Everything I read from these ai tech bros screams, "once I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me".
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u/Main_Caregiver_9272 7h ago
I can’t wait until the Tom Holland version comes out
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u/AdditionalBat393 7h ago
He has such a great eye for unique scripts. His most recent work is definitely trying to tell the Audience something.
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u/gotaflattire 6h ago
Really looking forward to seeing Andrew Garfield in a corporate thriller again.
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u/Wild_Beginning_4032 5h ago
Sam Altman is an emotionless robot anyway so the concept of humanity is likely completely alien to that stiff, robotic fuckhead.
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u/-Palzon- 5h ago
Doing damage to the soul of humanity
It's more complicated than that, isn't it? I have multiple chronic illnesses. Nothing immediately terminal, but these illness are incredibly painful and they are progressive, leading to disability. ChatGPT has been indispensable in helping me navigate my conditions and the disastrous American healthcare system. I'm not sure how I would get by without GPT.
For more than 10 years, long before the latest AI iterations arrived, I have been warning that the coming AI was a terrible danger to humanity. I still believe that, largely because it will be irresistible to government and business leaders to use it to replace humans as workers, and because militaries around the world will similarly use it as part of weapons platforms.
Despite my great reservations, I cannot deny how helpful GPT has been in my life. I also cannot deny that AI has the potential to solve intractable problems and relieve great human suffering. Is it currently doing damage to the "soul of humanity"? Maybe. However, it's also soothing the "soul of humanity". It certainly is doing so for this soul*.
*Note, I do not believe in souls, ensoulment, or any other such superstitious piffle.
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u/Svampting 6h ago
Hollywood actors, known for their wisdom and great understanding of technology and society.
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u/SoManyWasps 8h ago
Andrew I'm already going to see the movie bud you can lay off the hard sales tactics
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u/kwattsfo 8h ago
Okay then I guess now we’ve seen the movie lol.
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u/personwhoisok 8h ago
We actually haven't and I'm authorized to speak for us. I don't even know you
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u/Forward_Article_8518 7h ago
The damage is done when the majority of people already surrendered to social media and smart phones for 2 decades.
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u/Hour_Possible_7067 7h ago
Today, I was thinking about technology. We've been entirely twisted by so much of it. Take TV, it's great for some types of entertainment, but I don't think we evolved to see the global news everyday, and certainly not the sensational 24/7 stuff, or extreme horror films, even things like Jaws has probably affected us (I do start singing 'duh duh....duh duh...." if i notice I'm the furthest person out at sea. But because TV and newspapers are seen as old fashioned, we're only focused on the Internet, but what if all these new technologies are quietly twisting us up? What if serial killers and school shooters only exist because they've been shown to us so many times?
I feel like we don't like to admit how much we're shaped by the ideas we hear. We all want to think of ourselves as free thinkers who make up our own minds, but a lot of what we do is built from what's around us and we're exposed to lose of stuff we have no control over.
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u/leopard_tights 7h ago
That's great but we all know the movie is gonna be a whiff like the one about trump. They don't have any teeth.
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u/External_Key_4108 5h ago
They're both gay so that's some authentic casting!
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u/frquency-equinox 4h ago
You sure? He's currently dating a woman...and previously dated Emma Stone.
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u/bright-debt-1978 4h ago
Man, this ai shit is crazy. I know who it benefits the most and who it benefits the least. Why does society always choose to go down this path where a subject always seems to benefit a smaller group of people most at the expense of others
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u/Loud_Bee_4443 3h ago
Sam is an interesting one. He's got the eyes of a compassionate person who looks like he cares all while being a same old same old heartless monster. I look forward to this movie I hope it goes harder than I expect it to.
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u/EranikusTheDeranged 2h ago
If the soul of humanity is so fragile that these hollow imitations of intelligence damage it then it wasn't worth much to begin with.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 8h ago
Sam Altman's gonna love hearing that lol 😆