News JVTech 40 years after warning us of the dangers of AI with Terminator, James Cameron has just joined one of the largest artificial intelligence companies in the world
Published on 09/30/2024 at 8:20 p.m.
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When reality catches up with fiction: James Cameron, the director of the first episodes of the Terminator franchise, has just joined the board of directors of Stability AI. Is Skynet upon us?
James Cameron is not only interested in the seabed: he is also keen on new technologies. And it is clear that the director is visionary: 40 years ago, it featured an artificial intelligence rebelling against humanity, called Skynet. Today, as AIs are everywhere and becoming more and more intelligent, the Terminator storyline looks less and less like science fiction.
It is as a enthusiast of new technologies, but also as a Hollywood director that James Cameron has just joined the board of directors of one of the most important companies linked to artificial intelligence today.
“The Next Step” in Hollywood
“I have spent my career researching emerging technologies that push the very boundaries of what is possible, all in the service of telling incredible stories”Cameron said in a press release. “I was at the forefront of computer graphics over 30 years ago, and I’ve been at the forefront ever since. Now the intersection of generative image creation via AI and computer-generated imagery is the next step”he believes.
The point of view of the director of Titanic and Avatar appears quite clearly in his communication: we must work with AI, not go against it. “The convergence of these two completely different creative engines will allow artists to tell stories in ways we never imagined”he explains. He also believes, unsurprisingly, that Stability AI technologies are well on their way to offering it.
A choice that is debated, and we understand why
Stability AI is mainly known for its artificial intelligence Stable Diffusiondedicated to illustrations. However, the company, which raised $80 million this yearalso has an AI dedicated to creating videos, called Stable Video Diffusion. If it tends to be less talked about than OpenAI or Google, it benefits from a good spotlight with this announcement. “James Cameron is living in the future and waiting for the rest of us to catch up”commented Prem Akkaraju, CEO of Stability AI and incidentally former director of WETA Digital, Peter Jackson’s post-production studio.
More the choice of James Cameron is debated in Hollywood, a few months after the gigantic strike led by the SAG-AFTRA union, bringing together thousands of artists. Artificial intelligence and how it threatens many jobs within the cinema industrywas at the heart of the demands. If we can easily understand James Cameron’s interest in the technologies of the future, we can also question his ethics regarding the artisans of cinema and special effects in particular. It remains to be seen whether this announcement is a sign of a concrete commitment from the director or a simple publicity stunt.
