George Clooney doesn't trust the government to regulate AI

"It’s not just that you’ll see lies. It also makes you question things that really do exist," the actor says.

By Drew Gillis  |  September 4, 2026 | 9:32am
Photo: Darren Decker/©A.M.P.A.S.
Aux News Venice Film Festival
George Clooney doesn't trust the government to regulate AI

Another day, another filmmaker using their platform at the Venice Film Festival to talk about the ways in which the U.S. government is untrustworthy. Next up is George Clooney (again), who weighs in on the idea of AI regulation. Though presumably we’d like some regulation for the technology that’s rapidly being adopted across industries, Clooney doesn’t trust the government to be the arbiters of that. “I don’t know that you want government to be regulating this either, because I sit and watch when Zuckerberg is testifying in front of, you know, a 94-year-old Chuck Grassley, and they’re like, ‘Well, how do you turn that computer on?'” Clooney said at Venice, according to remarks published by Variety. “These are not the people that you want to entrust the holy grail with.” 

Though Variety’s reporting suggests that the swipe at Grassley was presented as a joke, Clooney does have more concerns about AI that are very serious. “It’s not just that you’ll see lies. It also makes you question things that really do exist. [It’s] also that sort of world of fake news — suddenly you’re able to take things that really happened and say, ‘Well, that didn’t happen either,'” he continued. And while we can’t imagine too many reasonable people are actually duped by the AI hallucinations the President shares about Iran on TruthSocial, for example, the fact that the President is sharing AI hallucinations is a pretty good point in support of Clooney’s argument. “You’ll have people who deny the Holocaust, and that will have the same weight in AI as facts,” he added, along with, “I think that’s some of the danger in all of this, is that we’re looking at something going, ‘We’re not sure where this is going to end, and we’re not sure who’s fully in charge.'” 

 
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