James Cameron is worried ‘The Terminator’ could happen in real life

James Cameron has revealed he is worried that AI could lead to a real-life version of his film The Terminator.

The Avatar and Titanic director went on the record earlier this year that he is exploring ways in which AI technology could help brings costs down in the film industry, but as stated in a new interview, he remains wary of the possible future that it could bring about.

The Terminator, released in 1984, was Cameron’s major breakthrough film and told the story of Skynet, a military defence AI created to control the US nuclear arsenal. In the film’s backstory, Skynet becomes self-aware, views humanity as a threat, and launches a nuclear war, later sending machines like the Terminator back in time to secure its victory.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Cameron said: “I do think there’s still a danger of a Terminator-style apocalypse where you put AI together with weapons systems, even up to the level of nuclear weapon systems, nuclear defence counterstrike, all that stuff.”

“Because the theatre of operations is so rapid, the decision windows are so fast, it would take a super-intelligence to be able to process it, and maybe we’ll be smart and keep a human in the loop. But humans are fallible, and there have been a lot of mistakes made that have put us right on the brink of international incidents that could have led to nuclear war. So I don’t know.”

He added: “I feel like we’re at this cusp in human development where you’ve got the three existential threats: climate and our overall degradation of the natural world, nuclear weapons, and super-intelligence. They’re all sort of manifesting and peaking at the same time. Maybe the super-intelligence is the answer. I don’t know. I’m not predicting that, but it might be.”

Last September, Cameron joined the board of directors for Stability AI. “My goal was not necessarily make a shit pile of money,” he said at the time. “The goal was to understand the space, to understand what’s on the minds of the developers. What are they targeting? What’s their development cycle? How much resources you have to throw at it to create a new model that does a purpose-built thing, and my goal was to try to integrate it into a VFX workflow.”

Avatar: Fire And Ash, the third entry in the fantasy saga, is set for release on December 19. Cameron has confirmed it will be the longest in the franchise so far, although the first trailer last month left many fans underwhelmed.

The director is also working on a collaboration with Billie Eilish, who has said it will be “something very, very special”. The first hints came during a show at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena last month, where there were 3D cameras around the venue.

Cameron also made headlines this summer when he criticised Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer. He called it a “moral cop out” and “dodged the subject” of the history of the Hiroshima bomb.

The post James Cameron is worried ‘The Terminator’ could happen in real life appeared first on NME.