Jeremy Clarkson takes a stand against AI by trademarking his face
After his image and voice were used by deepfake scam artists for a crypto currency advert, Jeremy Clarkson has revealed he is to trademark his face to protect his likeness from artificial intelligence.
Jeremy Clarkson is to trademark his face to stop his likeness being used by artificial intelligence.
The former Top Gear presenter, 65, previously had to deal with deepfake con artists who used AI to replicate his image and voice in adverts for scam products, and Jeremy has now revealed he is set to become one of the first celebrities to trademark his face.
Speaking with The Sun newspaper, he said: “It’s for perfectly good reasons - its not just my ego running amok.
“It’s an AI thing . . . because there’s so much activity around bitcoin or mortgage loans where my face, name, image, voice and so on has been used to promote things that I’m not promoting.”
He added: “I’m protecting people from ‘me’, but it’s not me, promoting something that I’m not. God it’s absurd.”
Jeremy and his former Grand Tour co-stars James May, 62, and Richard Hammond, 55, had all been victim to the scam, in which their likenesses were replicated through AI to promote a bogus crypto currency.
The Clarkson’s Farm star swiftly took to X to clarify to fans that none of the Top Gear trio had anything to do with the promotion.
He wrote: “To be clear. @MrJamesMay and I are not endorsing any kind of crypto currency. I don’t even know what crypto currency is. But it sounds ghastly.”
As well as his face, Jeremy is reportedly looking to trademark his pig Richard Ham - who he named after Richard Hammond - for a range of new Clarkson's Farm merchandise.
The Who Wants to be a Millionaire presenter’s trademark application to the UK’s Intellectual Property Office was said to have been submitted last month by his production team as part of a wider effort to expand the Clarkson’s Farm brand - which centres on his 1,000-acre Diddly Squat farm in Oxfordshire.
In the fourth season of Clarkson’s Farm, Jeremy chose to spare the piglet, the runt of its litter, during filming – a moment that quickly became a favourite among viewers.
Lisa Hogan, Jeremy’s partner and fellow Clarkson’s Farm star, provided an update on the animal’s progress on social media days before news of the trademark filing emerged.
A video clip shared by Lisa showed the now fully-grown animal snuffling into the camera lens from his sty as she said: “Yes, you’re huge… it’s because you’ve been hand-fed for all these months.”
