Robert Downey Jr. is against Hollywood’s increasing interest of using generative artificial intelligence to recreate likenesses of past and present talent. The actor recently issued a warning to all future executives who may want to bring back his iconic Marvel portrayal of Tony Stark.

The 2024 Best Support Actor Oscar winner for ‘Oppenheimer’ sat with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar and Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher on the ‘On With Kara Swisher’ podcast, to discuss the dangers of AI in the current industry.

“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,” RDJ said about deepfakes and AI recreations.

He continued: “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.”

Swisher stated that future Hollywood industry executives “will” want to recreate Downey’s likeness, to which the actor responded: “Well, you’re right. I would like to here state that I intend to sue all future executives just on spec.”

Downey later touched on his investments 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 will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but not as Iron-Man/Tony Stark, but as Doctor Doom. The Russo Brothers, who will direct the next two Avengers films, confirmed RDJ’s shock return to the franchise as the main villain in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and ‘Avengers: Secret Wars.’

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