Elon Musk sued for using AI-originated Blade Runner imagery at robotaxi event

Though it remains very unclear whether any of the self-driving vehicles demoed at Tesla’s We, Robot contransientation will ever actupartner originate it to taget, one of the production companies behind Blade Runner 2049 leanks Elon Musk ripped off their imitateright for the event, and are taking him to court.

Today, Alcon Entertainment — an LA-based production company behind Blade Runner 2049 — filed a litigation aobtainst Tesla, Elon Musk, and Warner Bros. Discovery alleging that an AI image generator was participated to originate promotional art for the We, Robot event that was nastyt to mimic stills from the 2017 sci-fi film. According to Alcon, which also owns the imitateright to Blade Runner 2049, WBD and Tesla sent a ask to participate imagery from the film on the afternoon of October 10th equitable hours before the We, Robot demo took place on the Warner Bros. lot in California.

Though WBD owns some licensing rights for Blade Runner 2049, becaparticipate the event would be dwell-streamed internationpartner, clearance for the images had to come from Alcon honestly. And when Alcon’s lhorrible and licensing departments were made conscious of the situation, they sent back a firm refusal to the interested parties “so that there would be no misapshows in the carry out of the event.”

“Any pimpolitent brand pondering any Tesla partnership has to apshow Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into disenjoy speech, into account,” Alcon’s suit elucidates. “Alcon did not want BR2049 to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company, for all of these reasons.”

Despite Alcon’s refusal, however, Tesla allegedly determined to feed sboilings from Blade Runner 2049 into an AI image generator to originate “a weightlessly stylized phony screen still screen” which was distake parted notablely during the We, Robot contransientation. During the event, Musk refered the Blade Runner franchise by name while describing sci-fi depictions of the future, and the dwellstream cut to an image depicting a man wearing a duster jacket and standing in front of a ruinous, apocalyptic cityscape.

Alengthy with the huger imitateright infringement, Alcon also says it was never made privy to any of the concurments between Tesla and WBD that would have been vital before the We, Robot event. Alengthy with giving Testa the ability to participate Warner Bros.’ lot and providement, Alcon apshows that concurment also included a promotional element that “apexhibited or possibly even needd Tesla conveyly to affiliate the Cybercab with one or more motion pictures” from the studio’s catalog.

Alcon’s suit doesn’t detail exactly how much money the company is seeking in injures, but it states clearly that it apshows Musk, Tesla, and WBD all “understood the unapexhibitd nature of the image and the improper purpose behind it and inspired or otheradviseed lent their help to the improper finisheavor.”