After their names were included in a list of alleged attendees at Peter Thiel‘s Dialog conference, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Sophia Bush are clearing the air.
The actors insisted they “do not know” Thiel and they “could not pay me to be in a room” with him, noting that the billionaire was not present at the secretive conference he founded two decades ago with a focus on tech.
“I understand why people have questions and are suspicious,” wrote Gordon-Levitt in a statement on Instagram. “Some of the headlines and posts circulating about this are alarming, if not bizarre. So let me clarify: I have been to two Dialog conferences. But, I do not know Peter Thiel. I’ve never met him. I’ve never spoken with him or his representatives. I’ve never seen him at an event. From what I’ve read about his views, we are political and ideological opposites.
“At the Dialog conferences I’ve been to, there were a wide variety of people, with a wide variety of opinions, some I agreed with, some I didn’t. I can’t speak to every person named in the reporting, but my experience was not of a single ideological gathering.”
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Gordon-Levitt continued, “Over the last couple of years, I’ve been focused on trying to make a positive impact on how the future unfolds, especially when it comes to tech and Al. Part of that work means forming relationships with all kinds of people, trying to understand their perspective, and trying to get them to understand mine. Sometimes it’s productive to engage with those we oppose.”
Bush noted that she “accepted nearly every single invitation I received” to conferences in the past couple of years to speak about the deepfake porn documentary Another Body with fellow executive producer Nia Batts, in attempt to champion the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act’s criminalization of deepfake abuse.
“You can imagine my surprise to learn that a conference I was invited to as a guest who could counter the ‘it’s-all-progress’ narrative of this seeming runaway Al race was founded by someone you could not pay me to be in a room with, let alone charge me money to be in a room with!?” she wrote in a statement. “To be clear, that individual was not present, was never brought up during my experience there at all, and as l’ve since learned he has not been involved whatsoever in approximately 15 years.”
Bush added, “My values are very clear and consistent. I work to protect families-by defending democratic institutions and safeguarding basic human rights.”
Noting she “did find the conference weekend valuable, in the same way I find it valuable to meet with and important to engage with people who see the world differently than I do in addition to the work I do alongside likeminded allies,” Bush recounted watching “diverse perspectives be heard and considered around tables.”
“I do wish I would have researched the event beforehand, but even if I had, I probably still would have gone because I firmly believe that having women standing up for women (and ringing alarm bells about our common and dangerous experiences with emerging technology) in rooms like these is of paramount importance,” explained Bush. “I want to ensure people are made to have that conversation. I want them to see us and to demand that they protect us. By the time I left the event early (had to fly to NC for another) I felt had been heard, and I felt like l’d listened too.
“I am proud of who I am in any room where I am advocating. And I’m proud of the values I brought into those conference rooms and conversations I had while there, and I feel the same way about the other artists and activists I attended with,” wrote Bush.
Founded by Thiel and Auren Hoffman, the invite-only network of CEOs, politicians and intellectuals meets to have small, moderated conversations in confidentiality about the future of tech, according to Axios, which reported the forum’s plans for a DC-area campus last year.
On Wednesday, The Hollywood Reporter shared self-proclaimed hacker Maia Arson Crimew’s leaked list of 113 alleged Dialog members, which also includes Elon Musk, Jared Kushner, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Cory Booker, Josh Brolin, Drew Scott, Scooter Braun, A24’s Scott Belsky, YouTube’s Neal Mohan, The New York Times’ Ezra Klein and more.
Brolin’s rep told THR he would “like to know what the fuck he got himself into,” which the outlet reported includes session topics ranging from ‘Disinformation & Deepfakes’ and ‘Democracy Under Surveillance’ to ‘Build-a-Cult’ and ‘Navigating WWIII’.
