James Cameron says he warned the world of AI’s rise in 1984: “You didn’t listen”
James Cameron says he first warned the world of the threat AI poses in 1984, but the industry “didn’t listen”.
In an interview with CTV News, the filmmaker referenced his sci-fi classic Terminator when asked what he thought of AI’s rise in the entertainment industry. “I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn’t listen,” Cameron said.
Besides just the entertainment industry, Cameron also thinks that AI poses a threat in military operations: “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 theater, the whole thing just being fought by the computers at a speed humans can no longer intercede, and you have no ability to de-escalate.”
Elsewhere in the interview, James Cameron said that he doesn’t believe the technology behind AI will be able to replace writers, saying: “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,” Cameron continued.
The writer-director also said that he “certainly wouldn’t be interested” in AI writing scripts for his film, but only time will tell how AI will impact the industry. “Let’s wait 20 years, and if an AI wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay, I think we’ve got to take them seriously,” he said.
James Cameron’s most recent film was the 2022 sci-fi epic Avatar: The Way of Water. That film scored a four-star review from Ali Shutler for NME. Shutler wrote: “Bigger, bolder and definitely better than the original, Avatar: The Way Of Water pushes the technical boundaries of cinema without feeling like a science experiment.”
Earlier this month, Cameron confirmed that he isn’t working on a film based on the recent OceanGate Titan sub tragedy. A source claimed that Cameron was “in talks with major streaming network to create drama series on doomed Titan sub,” adding that he “is first choice for director” of a film about the incident.
In a tweet, Cameron rubbished the claims, saying: “I don’t respond to offensive rumors in the media usually, but I need to now. I’m NOT in talks about an OceanGate film, nor will I ever be.”
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Surej Singh
NME
