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Elon Musk is facing legal action from Hollywood producers after he used a Blade Runner 2049-adjacent AI video at his robotaxi launch event this month. Alcon Entertainment alleges that footage of a man wearing a duster jacket in an apocalyptic cityscape was an AI-generated replicant of the Ryan Gosling film. The company had previously denied Musk’s request to use the film, “so that there would be no mistakes in the conduct of the event.” The suit states that any brand considering a Tesla partnership “has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicised, capricious and arbitrary behaviour… into account.” Alcon’s action follows Scarlett Johansson’s cease-and-desist threat to OpenAI in May after its new voice assistant sounded an awful lot like the Black Widow star. Sam Altman, the company’s chief executive, had asked to use her voice twice, receiving a firm no both times.
Apart from the obvious and alarming proof that tech bros want to live in apocalyptic sci fi movies and appear to be intent on delivering them, the case will set a precedent in the war between Hollywood talent and Silicon Valley AI enthusiasts.
The opening salvos were fired during the writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023 that protested against studios using AI. Alcon’s lawsuit calls Musk’s film “a bad-faith and intentionally malicious gambit” to make the event “more attractive to a global audience and to misappropriate the Blade Runner 2049 brand to help sell Teslas.”
Johansson won her bout: the release of the assistant, named Sky, was suspended. Musk is not expected to suspend the robotaxi – in part because its launch date is at best uncertain.
He claimed production would start next year but did not clarify when or how the company would overcome regulatory hurdles.
The launch prompted a share slide that continued this week, falling 13 per cent as investors expressed disappointment at the event and concerns that the robotaxi will be lost in time... like tears in rain.
