James Cameron Weighs in on AI as a Risk: I Warned You

James Cameron is weighing in on the topic of artificial intelligence and whether advancements in technology pose a serious risk to humanity.

In an interview with CTV News, the Oscar-winning filmmaker admitted he shared the concerns of experts in the field who believe that rapidly advancing technology could end up becoming a threat.

“I absolutely share their concern,” Cameron said. “I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn’t listen,” he added in reference to his film “The Terminator,” which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cyborg assassin.

Cameron stressed the need to consider the technology’s developers and their intentions, whether it is for profit — “teaching greed” — or for defense — “teaching paranoia.”

“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 said.

“You could imagine an AI in a combat theater, the whole thing just being fought by the computers at a speed humans can no longer intercede, and you have no ability to deescalate,” he added.

In a recent event, Schwarzenegger praised Cameron for accurately predicting the future of artificial intelligence in the “Terminator films,” saying that has now “become a reality.”

“Today, everyone is frightened of it, of where this is gonna go,” the actor said of current concerns around AI, according to People. “And in this movie, in ‘Terminator,’ we talk about the machines becoming self-aware and they take over.”

Schwarzenegger applauded the “brilliance of writing” in Cameron’s sci-fi film, considering that “at that time we [had] 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.”