James Cameron says of AI, “I WARNED you guys in 1984 and you didn’t listen”

James Cameron warned us of the threats of AI way before anyone had any idea.

We didn't take James Cameron's 1984 sci-fi action film The Terminator, which warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence, seriously enough.

Vassy Kapelos, the chief political correspondent for CTV News, interviewed James Cameron about the potential danger that AI poses to humans.

"I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn’t listen," Cameron said. "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."

Cameron further said, "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."

James Cameron on SAG-AFTRA, Writers and Artificial Intelligence

The director of Terminator also addressed the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike, which heavily emphasises the studios' use of AI. James Cameron doesn't believe artificial intelligence has advanced to the point where it will soon replace skilled writers.

"It’s never an issue of who wrote it, it’s a question of, is it a good story?" Cameron said.

"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."