James Cameron’s The Terminator was undoubtedly received initially as a blockbuster hit which launched the director’s career into big-budget science fiction and historical epic pictures. While the fear that presents itself in this film inherently relies on contemporary action-flick devices with the narrative following a classic chase movie of the likes of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, or attempts at 21st-century chase movie equivalents like The Bourne Ultimatum, the core of the threat in Cameron’s 84′ career-making movie is the violence against humans by AI cyborgs. Hence, the movie itself functions in the same way as a film like Mad Max: Fury Road where the action drives the movie. Thus the memories that are most prevalent in audience’s minds after seeing the picture are usually tied directly to the action itself. “I’ll be back,” can undoubtedly be seen connected to the police shootout which occurs following this scene itself while the “Your terminated f*cker!” is of course the final one-liner coincided with the AI cyborg’s death via an industriel press, still all of these moments tie directly to a piece of violent action. However, this is not the catalyst of the fear in the world of the Terminator franchise that Cameron presents, it is instead the threat that Artificial Intelligence presents to humanity. Cameron interprets this as a purely violent threat to the existence of the human species itself, the strides that Artificial Intelligence presents today, is rather to the labor inside the very system Cameron currently sits near the top of.
Ironically enough, Cameron’s work itself could very well be recreated into scripts which rival his own, by AI. Rebecca Keegan’s article entitled “AI is studying my book about James Cameron to learn How to Write” claims to have the ability to create films that out-do the work of writers beyond Cameron like Stephen King, Jennifer Egan, and Michael Pollan, what Keegan only cites is her ability to have AI recreate the written work of these authors, entitled as Books3. Keegan does not present any direct quotes or efven narrative forms from the work she claims in her title to be “So Far; It’s Robots 1, Humans 0”. While this claim may have the ability to be proven through the allegedly AI scripts reverberating through the big five studios in the largest big-budget reboots like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the claim that this work can replicate and even out-do the work of some of the most internationally published creative writers is frankly shallowly proven in the article. It is likely the title of choice due to the nature of the article inherently drawing more viewers based-off the fear factor of machines taking the positions of humans, however, this very well may be the case. Though the title implies that Artificial Intelligence has the ability to create pieces of writing superior in quality to human counterparts, which unless the next NYT bestseller (one that actually extends to hundreds of thousands of copies, not just utilizing the title for praise), is written by an Artificial Intelligence, is frankly unprovable. What is provable, however, is the threat that AI creative writing databases have against the scriptwriters of Hollywood today. While Keegan mentions the Writers Guild’s attempt to ban Artificial Intelligence systems from authoring material for the five studios she nevertheless must admit how these efforts are only leading to more negotiations, rather than to any direct legislation. While Keegan’s claim on quality may be unverifiable, at least at the moment, the score of humans v. robots through the perspective of the job market, is entirely valid.
Keegan, Rebecca. “AI is studying my book about James Cameron to Learn How to Write. So Far, It’s: Robots 1, Humans 0.” Hollywood Reporter. 29th September, 2023.
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