Andrew Garfield reveals ‘scary’ reason he quit ChatGPT after playing OpenAI boss
The Spider-Man actor says portraying tech chief Sam Altman prompted him to abandon the AI tool he had previously used to research acting roles.
Andrew Garfield stopped using ChatGPT after playing OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman in Artificial as researching the technology for the role left him “a bit scared”.
The 43-year-old Spider-Man star portrays Sam, 41, in Luca Guadagnino’s new drama about the rise of OpenAI and the extraordinary five-day period in November 2023 when its board fired its chief executive before reinstating him.
The film had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival this week and will receive a limited US cinema release on Christmas Day before expanding in January.
Andrew told Variety about the impact of his preparation for the movie: “I got a bit scared.
“I felt a little mistrusting of the technology. It feels like the people who are encouraging us to use the technologies don’t exactly know its capacities themselves. That feels a little irresponsible, to me personally.”
Andrew added he had previously been among ChatGPT’s users and employed the chatbot primarily as a research tool for his acting work.
He said: “Luckily, I don’t need (ChatGPT) in my life in the same way that other people in other industries might.
“As an actor, I was using it as a kind of fancy Google for some research purposes. I know that it’s not what it’s meant for.”
Artificial, written by Simon Rich, traces two decades of developments in machine learning and focuses on the upheaval at OpenAI surrounding Sam’s dismissal and return.
Yura Borisov, 33, plays OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, while Monica Barbaro, 36, portrays former chief technology officer Mira Murati.
Mark Rylance, 66, appears as AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, 78, and Ike Barinholtz, 49, plays Elon Musk, 55.
The film has itself become embroiled in controversy surrounding the relationship between Hollywood and the technology industry.
Amazon MGM Studios dropped the project in June after developing it, and Neon subsequently acquired distribution rights.
Andrew said he remained confident that artificial intelligence would not make performers redundant.
He added to Variety: “I don’t think actors are going to be rendered useless.
“The soul of humanity is the soul of humanity. And I think actors are some of the people that have to hold the soul of humanity for all of us and stories.”
His performance as Sam has attracted particular attention following the New York premiere, with early reviews highlighting his transformation into the technology executive.
Entertainment Weekly reported the film had attracted strong early critical notices, while Variety reported predictions that Andrew could become an awards contender for the performance.
Will Angus, who plays Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei, 43, told Variety: “(Andrew) has this vocal fry in between lines, kind of when he’s thinking, that he really nailed.
“The walk, the head movements. It was spooky.”
Sam has himself commented on Andrew’s portrayal after encountering the actor while Artificial was being filmed outside his home.
He said Andrew had captured his walk impressively, although he has questioned how accurately the finished film depicts the events surrounding his removal and reinstatement at OpenAI.
Andrew responded to Sam’s comments by telling Variety: “That’s a very generous thing for him to say.
“I imagine it must be incredibly strange and surreal to be a young man, as he is, to know that there’s a film where a version of him is being depicted. I feel quite sensitive and compassionate towards that. I’d personally feel really vulnerable and probably angry. That’s just me. He seems very chill about it.
“It’s a curious thing what we do, but as Luca has said, the people who are in power in our world right now, it’s our duty to interrogate that power.”
The film arrives amid continuing public debate about the speed and safety of artificial intelligence development.
Sam said in an interview published this week powerful AI required external governance as well as corporate safeguards and discussed concerns including cybersecurity and the potential existential risks posed by the technology.
For Andrew, Artificial follows a career that made him internationally famous as Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
He later returned to the role alongside Tom Holland, 30, and Tobey Maguire, 51, in the 2021 blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home.
His other major roles include Eduardo Saverin in David Fincher’s The Social Network, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination, and Desmond Doss in Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, which earned him his first best actor Oscar nomination.
Andrew received a second Academy Award nomination for playing composer Jonathan Larson in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tick, Tick… Boom! and subsequently starred opposite Florence Pugh, 30, in the romantic drama We Live in Time.
He is also currently appearing on cinema screens in The Uprising, Paul Greengrass’s historical drama set against the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, while Artificial is due to screen at the BFI London Film Festival following its New York premiere.
