Robert Downey Jr. praised Jon Favreau for being ambitious in his filmmaking, shouting out many films he has directed, including'The Lion King' and'The Jungle Book.' Robert Downey Jr. might be devoid of iron, but he's sure got some steel. The Academy Award-winning actor, 59, is speaking out about rapid technological advancements and how he plans to fight back if his name and likeness are manipulated by artificial intelligence. "I intend to sue," he told the "On with Kara Swisher" podcast. HOLLYWOOD EXECS WARN AI STEALS JOBS BUT CAN'T DO JOB OF TRUE ARTISTS: 'I WANT TO WORK WITH HUMAN BEINGS' Robert Downey Jr. says he plans to sue if someone manipulates his likeness through artificial intelligence. It all comes back to Downey Jr.'s alter ego, Tony Stark, whose own alter ego is Iron Man.

Last week saw the release of Kara Swisher's Burn Book, the highly anticipated career memoir from a titanic, justly celebrated veteran of tech journalism. Considering her unique, outsize stature in Silicon Valley, and her decadeslong record of landing bombshell inside scoops about the single most important industry of the 21st century, Swisher's choice to promote her latest project with the help of famous friends (Don Lemon, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, etc.) certainly makes sense. What makes much less sense, however, is her selection of tech-world executives. The book tour is going to be lit -- with guest moderators like @RobertIger, @laurenepowell, @mcuban, @donlemon, @reidhoffman, @sama and more. Some of the "moderators" on her tour include Laurene Powell Jobs, Disney CEO Bob Iger, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and Lean In board member Adam Grant. Per NPR's Steve Inskeep, she personally requested that these folks "interview her on stage," in a series of conversations she intends to turn into individual podcast episodes.

The boss of Microsoft has said there is "no OpenAI" without his company's involvement, as he revealed the American tech behemoth was not consulted about the sacking of Sam Altman. Satya Nadella said Microsoft, OpenAI's biggest investor, was not contacted by OpenAI board members before they sacked Altman as chief executive on Friday. Speaking to the tech journalist Kara Swisher on her podcast, he said: "It's not even the money and the capital. I mean, here's a simple way to think about this. Someone's got to think about why? There is no OpenAI without, sort of, Microsoft leaning in, in a deep way, to partner with this company on their mission."

The OpenAI chaos took another twist on Monday morning as most of the company's staff threatened to quit unless the board resigns and reinstates former CEO Sam Altman and ex-president Greg Brockman. According to Wired and Kara Swisher, around 500 employees -- including several executives -- signed the letter. Swisher noted that OpenAI has 700 employees. Several of them, including Chief Technical Officer Mira Murati (who held the company's top job on an interim basis for less than a weekend), wrote on X early Monday that "OpenAI is nothing without its people." Breaking: 505 of 700 employees @OpenAI tell the board to resign.

Kara Swisher has gotten to know a lot of tech-industry people over the years, and as she explains to producer Nayeema Raza in this episode of On With Kara Swisher, she knows "the difference between jerks and people who really actually do care about something bigger than themselves." Kara wholeheartedly believes LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman falls into the latter camp, even if the two of them don't always agree about the benefits and harms of new technologies such as artificial intelligence. Hoffman is an AI evangelist who is knee-deep in that world (including, until he recently stepped down, being on the board of OpenAI, the nonprofit behind ChatGPT and GPT-4), while Kara looks at the current AI frenzy and sees storm clouds ahead. During her conversation with Hoffman, Kara asks the longtime tech entrepreneur and investor for his thoughts on a range of topics, from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank to his political advocacy and ongoing fears about Donald Trump. She also grills Hoffman about his seemingly unflinching tech optimism; in the condensed segment below, she asks him to make his best case for several new AI-based technologies as well as explain what does, in fact, worry him about how AI could go wrong. Journalist Kara Swisher brings the news and newsmakers to you twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays.

AI is the foundational tech at Google and its parent company Alphabet, CEO Sundar Pichai told the audience at this year's Code conference in Los Angeles. He pointed out the "extraordinary" successes of the Google AI and DeepMind teams in areas such as large language models and the AlphaFold project, which showed the underlying structure of 200 million proteins. He said Google was now applying deep computer science and AI to all its products, from search to its work with pharma companies with AlphaFold to self-driving cars. But, he added, it is "important that we develop AI aligned with human values." Conference host Kara Swisher showed a 2016 interview in which Pichai (then interviewed by the now-retired Walt Mossberg) said he expected we would have true "conversational AI" to help get things done in the next 5 to 10 years.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has addressed rumours that his company is building a car in a new interview. While he declined to confirm any real details of what Apple is planning to release – if anything – he did give an indication of what the company might look to do if it does release a car, as rumoured. He noted that "an autonomous car is a robot" and that Apple looks to integrate hardware and software in all of its products. But the company "investigate so many things internally", many of which never actually "see the light of day", he told Kara Swisher in an interview for her New York Times podcast, Sway. In the same intervew, Mr Cook also discussed his commitment to free speech, his hope that controversial social media app Parler could return to the App Store, and Apple's ongoing fight with competitors including Facebook.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, 60, revealed to he does not see himself running the tech firm in 10 years. The CEO spoke with Kara Swisher for The New York Times Monday about Apple's upcoming technologies, specifically AR and an autonomous car, along with his own future. But I can tell you that I feel great right now. And the date's not in sight,' he told Swisher. Along with the announcement, Cook also augmented reality is'critically important' to Apple's future and said it could be used to enhance conversations.

Machine learning, virtual reality (VR), and pop-up stores are increasingly crucial to industries such as retail, as they help organizations deliver an easier -- and more exciting -- customer experience. "We have invested heavily in machine learning … to automate the ease of the shopping experience," Walmart Executive Vice President and CTO Jeremy King said onstage at NRF 2019. Imagine how long it takes a busy parent to manually add 100 grocery items to a virtual shopping cart, for example; now contrast that with automation that intuits what each shopper needs, whittling the process to mere seconds. "Building that kind of experience is really important." Click the button below to load the content from Youtube.

Elon Musk is usually far from a technological pessimist. From electric cars to Mars colonies, he's made his name by insisting that the future can get here faster. But when it comes to artificial intelligence, he sounds very different. Speaking at MIT in 2014, he called AI humanity's "biggest existential threat" and compared it to "summoning the demon." He reiterated those fears in an interview published Friday with Recode's Kara Swisher, though with a little less apocalyptic rhetoric.