Downey is currently confronting the future of AI on Broadway in the play “McNeal,” which takes aim at corporate giants in the AI space such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“I don’t envy anyone who has been over-identified with the advent of this new phase of the information age. The idea that somehow it belongs to them because they have these super huge start-ups is a fallacy,” Downey told Swisher about figures like Altman. “The problem is when these individuals believe that they are the arbiters of managing this but meanwhile are wanting and/or needing to be seen in a favorable light. That is a massive fucking error. It turns me off and makes me not want to engage with them because they are not being truthful.”