James Cameron warns of ‘Terminator-style apocalypse’ if AI weaponised
Humans face three existential threats, from super-intelligence, nuclear weapons and the climate crisis, says blockbuster director as he announces new Hiroshima project
The director James Cameron has warned that the use of artificial intelligence in a global arms race could lead to the kind of dystopia fictionalised in his Terminator franchise.
Speaking to Rolling Stone to promote the publication of Ghosts of Hiroshima, an account of the first atomic bombing by bestselling author Charles Pellegrino which Cameron intends to adapt for the big screen, the film-maker behind three of the four highest-grossing films of all time (Titanic and the first two Avatar films), said that although he relies on AI professionally, he remains concerned about what might happen if it was leveraged with nihilistic intent.
“I do think there’s still a danger of a Terminator-style apocalypse where you put AI together with weapons systems, even up to the level of nuclear weapon systems, nuclear defence counterstrike, all that stuff,” Cameron said. “Because the theatre of operations is so rapid, the decision windows are so fast, it would take a super-intelligence to be able to process it, and maybe we’ll be smart and keep a human in the loop.