Mumbai: George Clooney joked Wednesday that artificial intelligence could put him in a tampon commercial after his death, while warning that the technology could cost jobs in Hollywood and make it harder to know what is real.
The actor made the remarks during a press conference at the Venice Film Festival, where he was receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. He also discussed the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery merger, another Ocean’s film, and the concentration of media ownership among billionaires.
The Ocean’s Eleven actor said that deepfakes and other AI-generated material could make people dismiss real images and videos as fake.
“It’s getting harder and harder for us to discern the truth,” he added.
When asked how AI could affect him personally, he raised the possibility of his likeness being used posthumously without his consent.
“Well, I would like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I’m dead. I would like to avoid that,” Clooney said.
Calling AI a “revolution” for the film industry, Clooney said it could lead to job losses, particularly in visual effects.
“It’s going to hurt us in a lot of ways. If you’re a visual effects supervisor, you’re going to have trouble coming up because that’s going to be a lot of jobs taken away,” he said.
Clooney also questioned whether the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery merger would go through. He wondered whether it made financial sense for the companies pursuing it, adding that consolidation usually comes at the expense of employees.
“I always worry whenever big companies are consolidating because it usually means a lot of people lose their jobs. That’s the truth,” he said.
‘Lot of room for good journalism’
Clooney confirmed that another film in the Ocean’s franchise was being planned with Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.
“We have an Ocean’s film that we’re going to shoot as soon as we get our schedules worked,” he said.
Asked about journalism, Clooney pointed to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s ownership of The Washington Post and Elon Musk’s ownership of X. He said it was concerning that several major sources of information were controlled by some of the world’s wealthiest people.
“I think five or six of the biggest outlets for information are owned by the richest people in the world. That’s a concern, but there’s still a lot of room for good journalism,” he said.
The actor stated that journalism had always faced challenges, but that he believed information would continue to “find its way out”.
He received the Golden Lion nearly three decades after first attending the Venice Film Festival with Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight in 1998.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
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