Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron dramatized the perils of superintelligent AI in “The Terminator,” and now he's joined the board of artificial intelligence firm StatB AI.
“I was at the forefront of CGI three decades ago, and I've been at the forefront ever since,” Cameron said in a statement to the News. “Now the intersection of generative AI and CGI image creation is the next wave.”
He added: “I've spent my career looking for new technologies that push the boundaries of what's possible, all while telling amazing stories.
Stability AI offers an AI-based image and video generation tool, Diffusion AI, which competes with tools like Midjourney and Flux. It is one of the most popular generative AI tools in the world and is said to have over 150 million downloads.
The San Francisco-based company is valued at around $1 billion after raising $233 million in five rounds of funding. Cameron has a prolific career in film and is widely used in the special effects industry.
His films include the Oscar-winning “Titanic” with “The Terminator”, “Aliens”, “The Abyss” and the “Avatar” series. Collectively, his films have grossed nearly $9 billion, the second-highest of any director. Cameron pioneered the use of computer-generated visual effects in “The Abyss” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and performance filming in “Avatar” and its sequels.
In the “Terminator” franchise, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Skynet rebels against humanity and sends killer robots back in time to kill his nemesis John Connor.
Serenity AI combines Cameron's artist-centric perspective with his business and technical skills to help open up new opportunities to “empower creators to tell stories in unimaginable ways,” the company says.
“The combination of these two completely different creation engines opens up new ways for artists to tell stories in ways we never imagined,” added the director.
Cameron isn't the only big name set to join the company's board.
Shane Parker, who was previously an investor in Facebook and served as the company's president, will now become CEO of Stability AI.
Additionally, Dana Settle, founder and managing partner of investment firm Greycroft, and Colin Bryant will join the board as COO and managing general partner of Coatu.
The influx of fresh new executive talent comes as stability AI has seen some big internal changes; In June, visual effects company Weta Digital appointed former CEO Prem Akaraju as its new CEO.
“I warned you guys in 1984.”
Cameron has previously criticized AI and expressed concerns that it could pose a threat to humanity. In the year “I warned you in 1984, and you didn't listen,” he told CTV News in July 2023, returning to “Terminator.”
The director also expressed his doubts about AI's ability to replace human creativity, stating that “a disembodied mind is just repeating what other minds in other minds have said” and argues that “there is nothing to move the audience.”
Cameron added that AI would “not really be interested” in writing the scripts, but “I think we should take it seriously if AI wins the Oscar for best screenplay.”
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