James Cameron: Terminator warned about AI but ‘you didn’t listen’

AI is at the heart of many controversies right now.

It’s a key point of contention for the ongoing actors and writers strike, who push back against Hollywood’s interest in replacing humans with machines. It’s a concern when it comes to plagiarism and cheating at academic institutions. It’s even cause for existential dread as companies like Boston Dynamics create increasingly human-like robots.

But if you ask James Cameron, this could have all been avoided had we paid more attention to his movies.

While in Ottawa on Tuesday to promote a new Canadian Geographic exhibit about deep sea exploration, the Oscar-winning Canadian filmmaker sat down for a wide-ranging interview with CTV News. Naturally, the subject of AI came up, given Cameron’s iconic Terminator sci-fi action series. The series, of course, is about the fight to prevent a post-apocalyptic future brought about by a hostile AI.

“I absolutely share their concern,” Cameron said when asked about experts’ fears of the dangers of AI. “I warned you guys in 1984 [when The Terminator came out], and you didn’t listen!” he said with tongue in cheek. Earlier this year, Cameron also said he had an idea for another Terminator film but is waiting to see more from the advancement of AI before going forward with it.

On a more serious note, he addressed whether he thinks technology is anywhere close to being able to replace screenwriters believably.

“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.

“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 added.

Instead, Cameron said he thinks “the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger” of all. “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.”

CTV News‘ full interview with Cameron can be found here.