James Cameron is literally saying, “I told you so” in response to the rise of AI. In an interview with CTV News, the filmmaker referenced his sci-fi classic The Terminator while sharing his concerns about the threat artificial intelligence poses to humanity.
“I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn’t listen,” he told Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos, explaining that we have to examine who is developing the technology and whether they are doing it for profit (“teaching it greed”) or for military defense (“teaching it paranoia”).
He continued, “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.”
In The Terminator, Cameron and co-writer Gale Anne Hurd laid out a scenario in which an artificial intelligence defense network called Skynet had become self-aware and all but destroyed humanity. Four decades later, it no longer feels like science fiction, but a potential reality.
Elsewhere in the interview, Cameron gave his thoughts about AI bots being used to write film scripts, which is one of the sticking points in the ongoing WGA strike. On that front, he doesn’t feel threatened by artificial intelligence being able to encroach on his craft.
“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,” he said. “I don’t believe that’s ever going to have something that’s going to move an audience. You have to be human to write that.”
Cameron added that he “certainly wouldn’t be interested” in AI creating scripts for him: “Let’s wait 20 years, and if an AI wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay, I think we’ve got to take them seriously.”
Earlier this month, the Titanic director dispelled rumors that he is making a movie about the OceanGate tragedy. Following the explosion of a submersible meant to sustain tours of the Titanic wreckage, he was one of the most high-profile voices to criticize the company for ignoring warnings about the vehicle’s structure.
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