Robert Downey Jr. Issues Warning To Future Execs About AI Usage

Robert Downey Jr. is firmly anti the usage of generative artificial intelligence to recreate his likeness, issuing a warning to potential future executives who may want to bring Tony Stark back from the dead.

The Oscar-winning Oppenheimer actor recently appeared opposite Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar and Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher on the podcast On With Kara Swisher to discuss the former’s Broadway debut in a play about the dangers of the AI age.

“There’s two tracks. How do I feel about everything that’s going on? I feel about it minimally because I have an actual emotional life that’s occurring that doesn’t have a lot of room for that,” the actor said when prompted to comment on his thoughts on deepfakes and AI recreations.

At the same time, the MCU actor said he’s confident those currently at the conglomerate wouldn’t do such a thing: “To go back to the MCU, I’m not worried about them hijacking my character’s soul because there’s like three or four guys and gals who make all the decisions there anyway and they would never do that to me, with or without me,” he said.

When Swisher maintained that future executives “certainly will” want to do so, Downey answered: “Well, you’re right. I would like to here state that I intend to sue all future executives just on spec.” Though Swisher then noted that he’ll be long gone at that point, Downey quipped, “But my law firm will still be very active,” prompting laughs from Swisher who compared him to Elvis Presley and his estate.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Downey spoke to his longtime investment in AI companies: “It always comes down again to not the technology or the opportunity to line my pockets as much as, ‘Who are the people involved with this? Do I think they have a moral psychology? For what reason are they deploying this? Is their steering committee sound? Do I have something to learn from this experience, can I be additive?’ So I’m a little more agnostic about these things.”

Downey can currently be seen in McNeal, starring as a prominent Nobel Prize lauded novelist who uses AI to pen a new work. The Lincoln Center Theater production, which runs through Nov. 24, has received wobbly reviews. Deadline’s own take calls it “slow to grab hold and knotty when it does,” yet showers praise on Downey for his portrayal.

The Iron Man actor will also soon return to Marvel as Dr. Doom, with the Russo Brothers’ Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, cementing himself as one of the highest-paid actors within the franchise universe.