'I warned you guys in 1984,' 'Terminator' filmmaker James Cameron says of AI's risks to humanity
By: Spencer Van Dyk CTV News (Canada Television News)
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S E E D E D C O N T E N T
'I warned you guys in 1984,' 'Terminator' filmmaker James Cameron says of AI's risks to humanity
Director James Cameron is photographed during a portrait session at a central London hotel following the 'Titanic 3D' UK film premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington, West London, Tuesday, March 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
Oscar-winning Canadian filmmaker James Cameron says he agrees with experts in the artificial intelligence field that advancements in the technology pose a serious risk to humanity.
Cameron, who’s been critically acclaimed for his films “Titanic” and “Avatar,” among others, is in Ottawa Tuesday to launch a Canadian Geographic exhibit about his feats of deep-sea exploration.
He also directed and co-wrote the 1984 science fiction action film “Terminator,” about a cyborg assassin, and was asked by CTV News about his thoughts on recent predictions about the future of AI.
Many of the so-called godfathers of AI have recently issued warnings about the need to regulate the rapidly advancing technology before it poses a larger threat to humanity.
“I absolutely share their concern,” Cameron told CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos in a Canadian exclusive interview ahead of a conversation with his long-time mentor Dr. Joe MacInnis Tuesday.
“I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn't listen,” he said.
Cameron said it’s important to evaluate who is developing the technology, and whether they’re doing it for profit — “teaching greed” — or for defence, what he called “teaching paranoia.”
“I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger,” 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.
“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.”
AI AND THE HOLLYWOOD WRITERS', ACTORS' STRIKES
The use of AI and its need for regulation has also been a point of contention in the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes in the United States.
About 160,000 actors and other media professionals as part of the SAG-AFTRA union are on strike, joining on the picket line the more than 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike since early May.
The unions are arguing that performers need protections against their images and art being used by AI technology without their consent, and the writers say studios shouldn’t be allowed to replace them with AI to write scripts.
“If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher told reporters last week. “We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.”
Cameron said Tuesday he doesn’t believe the technology is or will soon be at a level of replacing writers, especially because “it’s never an issue of who wrote it, it's a question of, is it a good story?”
“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,” he said.
Cameron said while he “certainly wouldn't be interested” in AI writing his scripts, time will tell the impact they’ll have on the industry.
“Let's wait 20 years, and if an AI wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay, I think we've got to take them seriously,” he said, when pressed on whether he’s open the possibility of accepting an AI-produced script.
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I agree with him. Even though nations and blocs of nations might impose controls, there is still the possibility for an independent evil maniac who might bring about Armageddon. I just watched The Sum of All Fears yesterday wherein just such a maniac came close to doing so.
Too many experts have predicted bad things from AI for it not to be in the cards.
I think it has become a backward step for developing creativity and independent thinking in education. If I were still teaching I wouldn't trust that a student didn't use it.
Good friggin' grief. This guy is comparing an incredibly sophisticated artificial entity (in mind and body) to what we are currently calling AI??
People are, as always, overreacting out of ignorance.
You prompted me to post an article about predictions of the end of the world. LINK ->
In the movie it was a computer program "sky net" that took control of everything else. The Terminators came later developed by the sky net AI computer program. The danger isn't what AI is today, as a computer program it learns and makes decisions and that's where the danger lies. What will it learn and what will it decide to do with that knowledge.
Seems to me that computers can be both a blessing and a curse.
If we project a path far into the future where machines continue to grow and learn, and we presume human beings lose control, then yes the nightmare scenario could be a reality.
My point was that people are leaping into that nightmare scenario already and that is flat out irrational.
AI today needs to be controlled just like any other powerful technology. The Internet, for example, is a powerful technology that needs to be controlled. The idea of putting in safeguards for powerful technology is a good one. What is bad is the overactive imagination of what AI is today. It simply is nowhere close to what most people seem to have in their heads.
True for almost any technology.
We don't even fully understand how human brains develop, let alone how to program one.
It would be a major step to go from intelligent functionality and clever use of patterns to consciousness, reasoning, imagination, etc.
Which is why I believe, were it ever to happen, it would almost have to be an act of accidental evolution.
I will say it does make for good entertainment...
I think we are capable (given sufficient time) of creating an AI that is vastly superior to human reasoning. It will not be something any of us get to observe, but given what human beings can do (especially with ever-increasing powerful tools) I would not bet against such an advancement.
My concern is that human beings will inadvertently destroy society before technology gets to that point.
Ohhh... I think we are well on our way to doing just that. All one has to do is look at the heat records and see we are trending in the wrong direction.
We just need to make sure we can unplug it
Then maybe we should only worry about what our grandchildren are going to have to deal with. Actually there already is enough reason for worry - especially when it comes to climate change.
Does the YouTube link provide the same or similar info that the IMDb one does? If not, my RED BOX RULES apply to it.
That would not be an outlandish prediction. Personally, I think human beings are already working towards it.
Agreed.
A good suggestion but I wonder if many would follow it.