“I intend to sue any future executives” who recreate my likeness

Robert Downey Jr. appeared on a recent episode of the Podcast ‘On with Kara Swisher’ and sent a stern warning to Hollywood in the age of AI: “I intend to sue any future executives” who agree to the creation of a digital replica of Downey. The Oscar winner does not want his image to be used on screen via AI technology and/or deepfakes. The topic came up in connection with Downey’s Marvel tenure as Iron Man, but he’s adamant that Marvel wouldn’t recreate its Tony Stark via AI.

“There are two songs. How do I feel about everything that’s happening? I think about it minimally because I have an actual emotional life that doesn’t have much room for that,” Downey said when asked if he would be digitally recreated in the future.

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“Going back to the MCU, I don’t worry about them hijacking my character’s soul because there are three or four guys and gals there making all the decisions anyway and they would never do that to me with or without me ,” he says. added.

When host Kara Swisher said that “future executives will definitely” want to digitally recreate Downey on the big screen, the actor responded, “Well, you’re right. I would like to state here that I intend to sue all future executives, on specification only.”

“You’ll be dead,” Swisher noted, to which Downey replied, “But my law firm will still be very active.”

Downey is currently confronting the future of AI on Broadway in the play “McNeal,” which focuses on corporate giants in the AI space such as Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

“I don’t envy anyone who has overly identified with the advent of this new phase of the information age. The idea that it’s somehow theirs because they have super-sized startups is a fallacy,” Downey told Swisher about figures like Altman. “The problem is when these individuals think they are the arbiters of managing this, but meanwhile want and/or need to be seen in a favorable light. That’s a huge fucking mistake. It turns me on and makes me not want to talk to them because they are not being honest.”

Downey is currently gearing up to return to Marvel, but he’s doing so as a human being and not as a digital replica of Tony Stark. He doesn’t actually play Tony Stark/Iron Man at all, instead taking on the role of the villainous Doctor Doom, starting in 2026’s “Avengers: Doomsday.”

Listen to Downey’s full interview on the Podcast ‘On With Kara Swisher’ here.

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