Veteran film director James Cameron is blasting artificial intelligence, saying he finds it “horrifying” that AI can create fake actors based solely on “text prompts.”
In an interview with CBS’ Sunday Morning, the Avatar creator noted that Hollywood studios has been dreaming about using technology to eliminate human actors since the rise of computer graphics.
“For years, there was this sense that, ‘Oh, they’re doing something strange with computers and they’re replacing actors,’ when in fact, once you really drill down and you see what we’re doing, it’s a celebration of the actor-director moment,” Cameron insisted referencing his series of Avatar films, the first of which already debuted twenty years ago in 2005.
Despite his pioneering in modern computer-generated graphics, though, Cameron says he is horrified by the onset of AI.
“Now, go to the other end of the spectrum, and you’ve got generative AI, where they can make up a character,” Cameron said. “They can make up an actor. They can make up a performance from scratch with a text prompt. It’s like, no. That’s horrifying to me. That’s the opposite. That’s exactly what we’re not doing.”
Cameron’s comments come months after comedian and producer Eline Van der Velden created the world’s first AI “actor” she named “Tilly Norwood.”
But many real human creators are very worried about the intrusion of AI into their fields. In fact, Hollywood has reportedly already lost more than 200,000 jobs and climbing to AI. And so far, the studios have stayed awfully quiet over the matter, likely out of fear and powerlessness over the sea change.
Many actors, directors, and producers have also professed their worries over the advancement of AI.
Prolific actor Nicolas Cage, for one, has raised the alarm over AI, and said he fears that once he dies, studios will “steal” his body and use AI to continue making Nicolas Cage movies without him in control of it all.
Actor Sean Penn also blasted AI and in 2023 said that using it will create a “human obscenity.”
Ron Nyswaner, the author of the film Philadelphia, also warned about AI this year when he said that it will create soulless dreck that will remove the possibility for artists and viewers to “think and feel.”
Many notable filmmakers have also spoken out against the use of artificial intelligence.
Producer, writer, and director James Cameron warned that AI will lead to a Judgement Day-style cataclysm with out-of-control algorithms taking control of warfare.
Director Ridley Scott of Blade Runner fame called AI bad for humanity, and compared it to a “technical hydrogen bomb.”
Christopher Nolan said AI will surely reach an “Oppenheimer moment” — or a point of no return — and that people need to be “held accountable” for its development.
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