James Cameron: We as artists have to ‘master’ generative AI

James Cameron has never hesitated to give good quotes on anything, so naturally, he has thoughts on generative AI.

The 70-year-old director is the all-time box office GOAT, with an impressive string of hits such as Titanic and the Avatar series. He recently took to a couple of different venues to discuss generative AI, which is impacting movie-making in the same way it’s impacting virtually everything else.

In a conversation with Screen Daily, an international film industry publication, Cameron said that artists will need to “master” generative AI so they can harness its potential on their own terms.

“I can’t think of anything coming up that is bigger and more important to us right now than confronting this generative AI issue,” Cameron told Screen Daily. “It is critical that we master it and control it so that it remains an artistic tool and it doesn’t replace artists.”

Cameron is known to be as verbose as he is opinionated, and he has consistently been on the cutting edge of visual effects technology. In general, generative AI has been extremely controversial in Hollywood, with even the smallest whiff of generative AI leading to fierce backlash. However, in recent conversations, Cameron staked out a more measured point of view.

“There are some very dangerous things ahead of us right now, but I’ve never been afraid of new technology,” the director said to Screen Daily. “I want to learn it, I want to master it for myself, then use my own best judgment about how I apply it to my personal art.”

Cameron went on to tell Screen Daily that we’re in a sort of “wild west” with AI right now. “We as the artists in movies, in television, have to set the rules for it. Right now, there are no rules. It’s the Wild West.”

And in an appearance on the Boz to the Future podcast, Cameron said that generative AI could be critical for filmmakers trying to drastically lower the costs of making big, effects-heavy films, citing Dune as an example. However, he stressed that doesn’t mean taking away work from humans.

“Now that’s not about laying off half the staff and at the effects company,” the director said, according to Variety. “That’s about doubling their speed to completion on a given shot, so your cadence is faster and your throughput cycle is faster, and artists get to move on and do other cool things and then other cool things, right? That’s my sort of vision for that.”

If you haven’t kept up with Cameron throughout his filmmaking career, this is entirely in keeping with his approach for the past few decades. He has consistently advocated for new technologies like CGI (pioneered in Terminator 2) and performance capture and 3D filmmaking, like the kind seen in Avatar. Where this gets tricky is that CGI and performance capture still require a human touch to work properly, while some generative AI advocates believe the technology can be used to write screenplays or make movies without human input at all.

Currently, the use of AI in Hollywood has become a battleground for unions like SAG-AFTRA negotiating with big studios.