James Cameron warned audiences 40 years ago of potential dangers of advancing AI in ‘Terminator’

Los Angeles: Artificial Intelligence has become the bane of Hollywood these days, and as the industry grapples with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes leading to financial losses and delay/cancellation of content, various filmmakers and actors too have taken note of advancing AI and its overuse by big studios.

However, James Cameron had already warned the world of AI’s potential damage 40 years ago and how it could take over existing systems in his iconic sci-fi film ‘Terminator’ who had already given a scenario of what could happen if AI became weaponised.

According to ‘People’ magazine, the Academy Award-winning director said in a recent interview with CTV News while talking about his own views on the ongoing debate about artificial intelligence and it taking over writing and production.

“I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn’t listen,” Cameron told CTV News. The director further said that he absolutely shares the concerns about AI potentially going too far.

Cameron told CTV news, “I think the weaponisation of AI is the biggest danger,’ he told viewers. “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”, he said. “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.”

Talking about his 1984 classic, he said “In ‘Terminator’, we talk about the machines becoming self-aware and they take over. Now, over the course of decades, it has become a reality. So it’s not any more fantasy or kind of futuristic. It is here today.”

While at the time it was just an imaginary story and pipe dream, the increase in technology has spooked many people. Earlier both actor Simon Pegg and director Christopher Nolan had spoken about AI, with Nolan saying that the scenario of an AI construct taking over human labour gradually could escalate into a much more spooky scenario which could take over existing systems, and that wouldn’t be too far from the truth in a couple of years.

–IANS