{"id":295367,"date":"2026-02-21T15:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/295367\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T15:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:45:11","slug":"matthew-mcconaughey-tells-students-to-protect-their-likeness-from-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/295367\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew McConaughey Tells Students to Protect Their Likeness From AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

And the award for Best Actor goes to\u2026 an AI model trained on Matthew McConaughey<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The concept of AI actors usurping human actors may sound far-fetched now, but it’s a future that McConaughey \u2014 the real McConaughey \u2014 believes emerging talent should prepare for.<\/p>\n

“It’s not enough \u2014 it may be for you \u2014 but it’s not going to be enough to sit on the sidelines and make the moral plea that ‘no, this is wrong!'” McConaughey said during a conversation with Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a>. “That’s not going to last. There’s too much money to be made, and it’s too productive. It’s here.”<\/p>\n

He and Chalamet spoke about AI in the entertainment industry<\/a> with students at the University of Texas at Austin during a CNN and Variety Town Hall event. The town hall will air on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET on CNN.<\/p>\n

During the conversation, McConaughey urged students to pursue legal protections for their likeness.<\/p>\n

\"Lauren<\/p>\n

\n Every time Lauren publishes a story, you\u2019ll get an alert straight to your inbox!\n <\/p>\n

\n Stay connected to Lauren and get more of their work as it publishes.\n <\/p>\n

“I say, own yourself, voice, likeness, etc. Trademark it!” he said.<\/p>\n

McConaughey said doing so will give people more control over their branding and the opportunity to receive fair compensation.<\/p>\n

“So, when it comes \u2014 not if it comes \u2014 no one can steal you,” McConaughey said. “They’re going to have to come to you and go, ‘Can I?’ Or, they’re going to be in breach. And you’ll have the chance to be your own agency and go, “yeah, for this amount,” or ‘no.'”<\/p>\n

For his part, McConaughey has already taken precautions.<\/p>\n

The “Interstellar” actor had eight trademark applications approved over the last several months, according to The Wall Street Journal. That included his iconic “Dazed and Confused” catchline, “alright, alright, alright!”<\/p>\n

“My team and I want to know that when my voice or likeness is ever used, it’s because I approved and signed off on it,” McConaughey told the Journal. “We want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world.”<\/p>\n

An attorney for McConaughey added, “In a world where we’re watching everybody scramble to figure out what to do about AI misuse, we have a tool now to stop someone in their tracks or take them to federal court.”<\/p>\n

McConaughey is also an investor in Eleven Labs<\/a>, an AI-powered voice generation platform. More recently, the company announced that McConaughey is using its tech to create a Spanish-language version of his newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And the award for Best Actor goes to\u2026 an AI model trained on Matthew McConaughey? The concept of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-295367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}