James Cameron suggests using artificial intelligence to make film production cheaper without resorting to mass layoffs. After joining the board of directors of Stability AI, the director shared his vision for optimizing the filmmaking process. About this informs Deadline.
The three-time Oscar winner, the author of Avatar, Titanic and The Terminator, recently explained the change in his position on AI. Cameron has previously criticized artificial intelligence, recalling his own 1984 film The Terminator, but has now said that technological advances should not be accompanied by job cuts.
“The goal was to understand the space, to understand what the developers are thinking. What are they aiming for? What’s their development cycle? How many resources does it take to create a new model that does a custom job. My goal was to try to integrate that into the VFX workflow. And it’s not just hypothetical.
If we’re going to continue to see movies that I’ve always loved, that I love to make and that I’m going to see — Dune, Dune Part 2, or one of my movies, or big movies with a lot of effects and CGI — we’ve got to figure out how to cut the cost of that in half.” Cameron said.
It’s not about cutting half the staff or the visual effects company, he said. The idea is to double their work on individual frames, reduce processing time and accelerate the production cycle, so artists can move on to new tasks and create other exciting projects more quickly.
We will remind that in September 2024, the general director of Stability AI, Prem Akkaraju, announced that Cameron would join the company’s board of directors. He emphasized that the director will join the mission of Stability AI to “transform visual media for the next century, providing creators with a complete package of artificial intelligence to bring their ideas to life.”
