'Blade Runner 2049' production company sues Musk and Warner Bros.

Musk held a "We, Robot" conference on October 11, launching Tesla's driverless truck Robovan, Tesla's driverless taxi Robotaxi and Tesla's humanoid robot iRobot. However, Musk's futuristic and avant-garde designs have attracted accusations and lawsuits one after another.

After the director of "I, Robot" accused Tesla's humanoid robot iRobot and driverless taxi Robotaxi of plagiarizing their movies, Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind "Blade Runner 2049", also came out to sue Elon Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros., claiming that the AI-generated images used in Tesla's driverless taxi Robotaxi launch conference came from the movie "Blade Runner 2049".

At the event, Tesla showed an image that was meant to show how Tesla could avoid a utopian future like the one in Denis Villeneuve's 2017 film Blade Runner 2049. Musk even mentioned Blade Runner during his presentation.

"We watch a lot of sci-fi movies where the future is dark and terrible, and that's not the future you want," he said. "I like Blade Runner, but I don't know if I want that future. Maybe we want that dust suit he's wearing, but not that gloomy apocalypse."

Alcon, the company that produced "Blade Runner 2049," said in the lawsuit that Tesla requested permission to use an "iconic still image" from the movie during the event, but was denied. The company then decided to use AI to create a fake image based on the movie.

The lawsuit also claims that the contract between "Blade Runner 2049" and the car brand is "worth eight figures" and calls Musk himself "problematic," while accusing him of "exaggerated, highly political, erratic and arbitrary behavior." Musk has not yet responded to the lawsuit.

In addition to Musk himself, the complaint names Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery Channel as defendants, the latter because it owns the venue for the Robotaxi keynote. Alcon seeks damages for copyright infringement and false endorsement.

As for the Robotaxi driverless taxi released on October 11, it is planned to be launched before 2027.