Renowned filmmaker James Cameron, known for his sci-fi action movies, shares his doubts about the possibility of artificial intelligence (AI) taking over human writers in the film industry.
In a recent interview, Cameron, known for iconic movies like Terminator and Avatar, discusses his thoughts on the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. Per Deadline, Cameron expressed, “I just don’t personally believe that a disembodied mind that’s just regurgitating what other embodied minds have said.” Cameron further explains that AI does not have the ability to genuinely express human experiences and emotions “about the life that they’ve had, about love, about lying, about fear, about mortality.” He depicts this as a process of combining existing ideas into a confused mix of “word salad,” and says it cannot “move an audience.” The acclaimed director finished with the statement, “Let’s wait 20 years, and if an AI wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay, I think we’ve got to take them seriously.”
The ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike has brought production to a standstill for two eagerly awaited projects, Marvel Studios’ Daredevil: Born Again and DC’s The Penguin. The projects remain on hold until the labor dispute between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) resolves. A central issue in the strike concerns streaming media residuals, as writers argue that their average incomes have dropped significantly compared to ten years ago. Additionally, writers promote the responsible use of AI technologies like ChatGPT.
Artificial Intelligence Remains a Central Issue in the Ongoing Strike
Arnold Schwarzenegger, known for his role in Cameron’s Terminator franchise and action comedy film True Lies, shares his thoughts on society’s AI worries, saying, “Today, everyone is frightened of it, of where this is gonna go, And in this movie, in Terminator, we talk about the machines becoming self-aware, and they take over… at that time we scratched the surface of AI, artificial intelligence. Think about that. 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.”
Schwarzenegger highlights the foresight in Cameron’s 1984 Sci-Fi film’s writing, in which a cyborg assassin from the future targets Sarah Connor, the mother of the future resistance leader, against Skynet, an AI system responsible for a nuclear apocalypse. Meanwhile, Cameron confirmed that he is working on a new installment of the Terminator franchise. However, he expressed his desire to observe how AI technology further develops before exploring its potential integration into his future projects.
Source: Deadline