Paramount Pictures
James Cameron has certainly never been short of confidence, that’s for sure.
During a recent interview, the acclaimed Titanic and Avatar director said that he warned humanity about the dangers of artificial intelligence and that we “didn’t listen.
“I warned you guys [about artificial intelligence] in 1984, and you didn’t listen,” Cameron said during a recent interview with CTV News.
“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, 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.”
While Cameron’s two Terminator films certainly did deal with the dangers of artificial intelligence, it’s undeniably egotistical of him to think that he and his movies were in a position to warn anyone of anything. It also would have been helpful for him to speak up about the issue a few years ago when it was still gestating and not once it’s already hit the market as it has now.
That said, Skynet and its Terminators are, perhaps, likely the first thing people think of when imagining a war with artificial intelligence, so maybe Cameron does have a point.
This is actually the second time that Cameron has made headlines with his comments about artificial intelligence in recent weeks, as he said earlier this summer that while he’s developing a new Terminator film, he’s waiting to see what happens with A.I. over the new few years before moving forward with it.
Cameron’s next film, Avatar: The Seed Bearer, was set to hit movie theaters in 2024 but, in typical Avatar franchise fashion, was recently delayed to 2025.