James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of films like Avatar, Terminator and Titanic, appears cautiously optimistic about the role generative AI can play in filmmaking, though even if he is wary of the in the style of prompts that have proliferated after images in the style of Studio Ghibli flooded the internet over the past few weeks.

I think we should discourage the text prompt that says, in the style of James Cameron, or in the style of Zack Snyder,' Cameron said on a podcast Wednesday, adding that makes me a little bit queasy. And yet, Cameron acknowledges that the ability to create content that mimics great talents is undeniably interesting, and mirrors what he himself does in his own head.

I aspire to be in the style of Ridley Scott, in the style of Stanley Kubrick. Thats my text prompt that runs in my head as a filmmaker, Cameron said. In the style of George Miller: Wide Lens, low, hauling ass, coming up into a tight close up. Yeah, I want to do that. I know my influences. Everybody knows their influences.

Cameron was a guest on Boz to the Future, the podcast hosted by Andrew Bosworth, the CTO of the the giant Meta. The latest episode, which dropped Wednesday, featured an extensive conversation about generative AI, with Cameron sounding optimistic about its use in special effects, and uncertain about whether studios, tech giants and legislators should focus on regulating the inputs to the AI models, or the outputs.

Cameron, of course, joined the board of AI firm Stability AI last year. Stability is the company behind the Stable Diffusion image model.

In the old days, I would have founded a company to figure it out. Ive learned maybe thats not the best way to do it. So I thought, all right, Ill join the board of a good, competitive company thats got a good track record, Cameron said of the decision. My goal was not necessarily make a shit pile of money. The goal was to understand the space, to understand whats on the minds of the developers. What are they targeting? Whats 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 its not just hypothetical, if we want to continue to see the kinds of movies that Ive always loved and that I like to make and that I will go to see Call it Dune, Dune Two something like that, or one of my films, or big effects-heavy, CG-heavy films weve got to figure out how to cut the cost of that in half, he continued. Now thats not about laying off half the staff and at the effects company. Thats 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? Thats my sort of vision for that.

When it comes to the controversial question of training AI models, Cameron seemed to suggest that regulators and lawyers should be more focused on the output of AI programns and tech, rather than the inputs and training data.

A lot of the a lot of the hesitation in Hollywood and entertainment in general, are issues of the source material for the training data, and who deserves what, and copyright protection and all that sort of thing. I think people are looking at it all wrong, Cameron told Bosworth. Im an artist. Anybody thats an artist, anybody thats a human being, is a model. Youre a model already, youve got a three and a half pound meat computer.

Were models moving through space and time and reacting based on on the our training data, he continued. So my point is, as a screenwriter, as a filmmaker, if I exactly copy Star Wars, Ill get sued. Actually, I wont even get that far. Everybodyll say, hey, its too much like Star Wars, were going to get sued now. I wont even get the money. And as a screenwriter, you have a kind of built in ethical filter that says, I know my sources, I know what I liked, I know what Im emulating. I also know that I have to move it far enough away that its my own independent creation. So I think the whole thing needs to be managed from a legal perspective, as to whats the output, not whats the input. You cant control my input, you cant tell me what to view and what to see and where to go. My input is whatever I choose it to be, and whatever has accumulated throughout my life. My output, every script I write, should be judged on whether its too close, too plagiaristic, whatever.

Instead, Cameron outlines a vision where more focused AI products help filmmakers create their visions more fully, arguing that AI giants like OpenAI and, yes, even Meta, are not really competing for Hollywoods business.

You look at OpenAI, their goal is not to make gen AI movies. I mean, were a little wart on their butt, I mean in terms of the scale youre talking about, they want to make consumer products for 8 billion people, Cameron said. And Im sure Meta is very much the same movies are just a little tiny application, a tiny use case. Thats the problem. So its going to be smaller, sort of boutique-type Gen AI developer groups that I can get the attention of and say, hey, Ive got a problem here. Its called rotoscope.'

Cameron is currently working on the next Avatar film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, which will be released in December, and reportedly will include a title card noting that no gen AI was used in creating the film.