Terminator Director James Cameron on AI: 'I Warned You Guys in 1984 and You Didn't Listen'
Though he doubts the technology will replace human writers anytime soon.
Director James Cameron has weighed in on the rise of artificial intelligence and the potential dangers it could present in the future, recalling his 1984 film The Terminator.
In a new interview with CTV News, Cameron considered the motives of those developing the technology, questioning whether it's for profit ("teaching greed") or for defence ("teaching paranoia"), as he acknowledged the threat AI could pose to humanity as further advancements are rolled out.
"I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn't listen," he said. "I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger. I think that we will get into the equivalent of a nuclear arms race with AI, and if we don't build it, the other guys are for sure going to build it, and so then it'll escalate.
"You could imagine an AI in a combat theatre," he added. "The whole thing just being fought by the computers at a speed humans can no longer intercede, and you have no ability to deescalate."
Hollywood is currently reckoning with how to put AI in the hands of the craftspeople behind movies and TV shows without forgoing the crafts of the people in the process. This topic has been hotly debated in recent weeks as the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WAG) joined forces in a historic double strike, with both unions demanding protections against AI technology.
In particular, SAG-AFTRA has argued for protections against AI using actors' likenesses without their consent or compensation, whilst the WGA has raised concerns about AI replacing writers on scripts. However, Cameron is of the opinion that the technology will not replace writers anytime soon because "it's never an issue of who wrote it, it's a question of, is it a good story?"
"I just don't personally believe that a disembodied mind that's just regurgitating what other embodied minds have said about the life that they've had, about love, about lying, about fear, about mortality and just put it all together into a word salad and then regurgitate it
I don't believe that have something that's going to move an audience," he said.
As such, Cameron asserted that he "wouldn't be interested" in AI writing stories or open to accepting an AI-produced script at the present moment, saying: "Let's wait 20 years, and if an AI wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay, I think we've got to take them seriously."
While Cameron is against using AI in the filmmaking world, it is a topic he has expressed interest in exploring further on screen. He previously said he would like to tap into the subject of AI, not just "bad robots gone crazy," if he was to relaunch The Terminator franchise in the future.
The last movie Cameron directed in the franchise was Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He had no involvement with the three sequels that followed but returned as a producer on Terminator: Dark Fate a movie he said he was "reasonably happy" with, though he admits it might have worked better without the original stars.
Terminator: Dark Fate earned over $250 million at the worldwide box office, but with a production budget of $185 million, plus $80 million to $100 million in global marketing and distribution fees, estimations suggested the film needed to bring in close to $450 million to break even.
https://www.ign.com/articles/terminator-director-james-cameron-ai-warned-you-in-1984-you-didnt-listen
