Why You Recognize SVU Guest Star Matt Jones, the AI CEO Investigated by Benson’s Squad
Aside from the gripping investigations and juicy squad room drama, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has long been hailed for its endless rotating door of guest stars, and Breaking Bad star Matt Jones raised the stakes for the elite squad in Season 27’s “Clickbait.”
SVU‘s October 16 episode was an emotional rollercoaster after Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and her elite squad went after the CEO of an AI company with a track record of nefarious sexual material. Jones played the AI company’s slippery CEO, who attempted to shuck accountability for the app’s users’ actions after a young girl and her high school teacher became the target of a horrific AI-generated cyberbullying attack. Jones flexed his chameleonic talent throughout the episode, attempting to charm the jury out of any accountability.
Viewers may recognize Jones from some of his other dynamite television appearances, and he led the squad through an intense legal rodeo in SVU‘s latest.
Why you recognize SVU guest star Matt Jones
Many know Jones for his role as Breaking Bad fan-favorite “Badger,” the eccentric friend of Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman. After appearing in several seasons of Breaking Bad, Jones reprised the role in the smash spin-off Better Call Saul and the 2019 film Camino. Jones has appeared in dozens of television titles throughout his multi-decade career, guest starring in series like Community, How I Met Your Mother, and Hawaii Five-0.
Some of his other notable roles include playing Gunther in the comedy series Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil, Hector Flanagan in the animated series Sanjay and Craig, and Zeke Schrute in NBC’s The Office. In recent years, Jones has starred in the television series Mom and Bob Hearts Abishola.
Matt Jones played a seedy CEO of an AI company on Law & Order: SVU
Upon making his way to the SVU universe, Jones played Lucas Boone, the founder and CEO of an AI-editing app called Nudai that made its profit in generating adult content. After Boone’s app created a nefarious legal snafu for a young girl and her high school teacher, Benson decided to charge Nudai criminally in hopes of seeing legal reform toward apps like Boone’s. AI tools had become gas on the fire of deep fakes and revenge porn, and the companies needed to suffer some sort of consequences.
Benson’s squad arrested Boone for the creation and dissemination of child sexual material, which proved to be an intense case for the SVU lawyers to navigate. Boone himself hadn’t created any illegal materials; he’d simply given users the tools to do it.
But after the prosecution discovered Boone’s app was originally intended just to age and de-age photos before he pivoted to use the same technology for a “more profitable” market of adult content, the jury was convinced. Boone was found guilty on all charges, but the Judge soon delivered jaw-dropping twists after dismissing the jury.
The Judge commended the SVU for their passion in the case, but the laws as written didn’t support the jury’s ruling. Boone’s business practices were “despicable, negligent, and lacking in basic decency,” but not criminal, so to convict Boone would be a miscarriage of justice. The Judge was forced to set the verdict aside and allow Boone to go free. The SVU was devastated by the harsh reality of the ruling, desperate to see reform as Boone’s company was disgraced.