James Cameron has always been a dreamer. And he brought those dreams to life in some of his most epic movies. In fact, the filmmaker has spent decades warning us about Skynet, killer robots and the apocalypse, and despite all of that, he’s willingly stepping into the AI boardroom. On September 24, Stability AI announced the Terminator director would join its board of directors, with the company’s CEO, Prem Akkaraju, praising the move as a way to “transform visual media for the next century.” Which, depending on your trust in tech companies and AI, either sounds visionary… or like the prelude to a dystopian sci-fi plot from Cameron’s own films.
The Aliens director himself framed it as the next logical step in creative evolution. “I was at the forefront of CGI over three decades ago, and I’ve stayed on the cutting edge since,” he said, adding that generative AI could “unlock new ways for artists to tell stories in ways we could have never imagined.” That’s a noble vision, but there’s also a darker reality that is worrisome. Cameron has also been loudly anti-AI when it comes to weapons. “I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn’t listen,” he told CTV last year.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Cameron reminded fans about his biggest fear. “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,” he said. The problem, he explained, is speed. Machines can make life-or-death decisions faster than humans can even process them. And while keeping “a human in the loop” might seem like the safe bet, he pointed out that humans are just as likely to make mistakes. “There have been a lot of mistakes made that have put us right on the brink of international incidents that could have led to nuclear war.”
Cameron sees three possible existential threats all peaking at once: climate change, nuclear weapons, and superintelligence. “Maybe the superintelligence is the answer. I don’t know,” he said, before admitting he’s not exactly betting on it. His concern isn’t hypothetical. He grew up with a vivid imagination for both beauty and horror. “I could imagine horrific, nightmarish scenarios so vividly that they would wake me up… but I could also imagine… beautiful phantasmagorical scenarios,” he said. One dream at 19 inspired Avatar. But the nightmares turned into The Terminator.
It’s not just AI and nukes that keep him up. He’s long been interested in how art can influence real-world leaders. He recalls how Ronald Reagan saw The Day After, a 1983 TV movie about nuclear war, and was so disturbed he set disarmament efforts in motion. For Cameron, empathy is the key. “Empathy is our superpower,” he said, pushing back at Elon Musk’s claim that it holds us back.
For his next feature, however, Cameron is stepping away from Pandora for a bit. After focusing on Avatar since 2009 (with Avatar 5 not arriving until 2031), his next passion project is The Devils, a twisted horror-fantasy based on Joe Abercrombie’s bestselling novel. “A sharply witty horror adventure? An epic battle between good and evil except most of the time you can’t tell which is which?” Cameron teased. He’ll co-write the script with Abercrombie, aiming to capture the novel’s cinematic flair.
Right now, James Cameron is juggling two futures. One dream where AI helps artists create the unimaginable, and one nightmare where AI decides the fate of humanity in milliseconds. Which one of the dreams we get might depend on whether the humans in charge still believe empathy is worth keeping. We do.
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