James Cameron Wants To Use AI To “Cut The Cost” Of Filmmaking

After joining Stability AI‘s Board of Directors, James Cameron has some ideas about streamlining the filmmaking process.

The 3x Oscar winner recently explained why he pivoted from his anti-AI stance to join the visual media last September, and what needs to happen if audiences “we want to continue to see” big blockbusters.

“The goal was to understand the space, to understand what’s on the minds of the developers,” he explained on the Boz to the Future podcast. “What are they targeting? What’s their development cycle? How much resources you have to throw at it to create a new model that does a purpose-built thing, and my goal was to try to integrate it into a VFX workflow.

“And it’s not just hypothetical. If we want to continue to see the kinds of movies that I’ve always loved and that I like to make and that I will go to see — Dune, Dune: Part Two, or one of my films or big effects-heavy, CG-heavy films — we’ve got to figure out how to cut the cost of that in half.”

Cameron continued, “Now that’s not about laying off half the staff and at the effects company. 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.”

Stability AI CEO Prem Akkaraju announced in September that Cameron would be joining the Board of Directors, helping the company work toward its mission “to transform visual media for the next century by giving creators a full stack AI pipeline to bring their ideas to life.”

Cameron previously referenced his hit 1984 film The Terminator as he denounced the use of AI in 2023. “I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn’t listen,” he told CTV News, emphasizing that “the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger,” but he doesn’t believe it has the ability to write a quality film.

“I just do’’t personally believe that a disembodied mind that’s just regurgitating what other embodied minds have said — about the life that they’ve had, about love, about lying, about fear, about mortality — and just put it all together into a word salad and then regurgitate it … I don’t believe that have something that’s going to move an audience,” he said.

Cameron added, “Let’s wait 20 years, and if an AI wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay, I think we’ve got to take them seriously.”