Robert Downey Jr: ‘I will sue all future executives who make AI replicas of me’

Robert Downey Jr has said he will instruct his lawyers to sue future executives who attempt to create digital replicas of him using AI.

Speaking on the On With Kara Swisher podcast, he said: “I would like to here state that I intend to sue all future executives just on spec.”

Swisher suggested he’d be dead by then, to which Downey Jr replied: “But my law firm will still be very active.”

In 2019, Downey Jr announced he had invested in FootPrint Coalition, an organisation that aims to use robotics and AI to try to reduce the carbon footprint of humans.

He is also on the board of an organisation that uses AI to try to tighten cybersecurity. Speaking on the podcast, he sought to draw a line between his investments and the use of AI in Hollywood: “It always comes down to not the technology or the opportunity to line my pockets as much as, ‘Who are the people involved with this?’”

The actor, who won an Oscar earlier this year for his role in Oppenheimer, about the invention of the atomic bomb, said that the world of AI and deepfakes was not one he ordinarily thought about, “because I have an actual emotional life that’s occurring that doesn’t have a lot of room for that.”

He continued by saying that such was his faith in those behind the Marvel movies that he doubted the company would ever seek to recreate him on screen without his permission.

“To go back to the MCU,” he said, “I am 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.”

In July, Downey Jr announced he would be returning to the MCU after his long-running stint as Tony Stark, this time playing Doctor Doom, one of Marvel’s biggest villains, in the forthcoming Avengers: Doomsday. The actor’s salary for two films is reportedly about $100m.

Earlier this month Downey Jr made his Broadway debut in Ayad Akhtar’s play McNeal.