‘Weaponization of AI Is Biggest Danger’

The director recently spoke with CTV News, where he spoke out against the use of AI for writing screenplays and why he thinks they won’t succeed.

“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,” said Cameron. “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 also added that he doesn’t “know anyone that’s even thinking about having AI write a screenplay.”

The Avatar director noted that filmmakers should “wait 20 years, and if an AI wins an Oscar for best screenplay, I think we’ve got to take them seriously.”

However, the use of AI for screenplays is the least of Cameron’s worries.

“You got to follow the money,” said the Canadian filmmaker. “Who’s building these things? They’re either building it to dominate marketing shares, so you’re teaching it greed, or you’re building it for defensive purposes, so you’re teaching it paranoia. 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,” continued Cameron. “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 deescalate.”

“I warned you guys in 1984!” said the director, referring to his film Terminator. “And you didn’t listen.”