‘Avatar’ director James Cameron says generative AI is ‘terrifying’

James Cameron’s films are often at the forefront of visual effects technology — especially the “Avatar” films, with their heroic blue Na’vi characters brought to life through performance capture.

But that doesn’t make Cameron a fan of generative AI.

في مقابلة أجرتها شبكة سي بي إس صنداي مورنينغ مرتبطة بالإصدار القادم من فيلم “Avatar: Fire and Ash”، أقر المخرج بأن التقاط الأداء (حيث يتم تسجيل أداء الممثل كقالب للفنانين الرقميين) يمكن أن يبدو مشابهًا لـ genAI. But in fact, he said, “it’s the opposite.”

“For many years, there was a feeling that they were doing something weird with the computer, replacing the actors,” Cameron said. “In fact, once you dig deeper and see what we’re doing, it’s a celebration of the actor-director moment.”

In fact, the CBS clip shows the “Avatar” cast members performing their underwater scenes in a 250,000-gallon water tank.

“Go to the other end of the spectrum, and you get generative AI, where they can create a character, they can create an actor, they can create a performance from scratch using a text message,” Cameron added. “No, that’s terrifying… and that’s exactly what we don’t do.”