Avatar and Terminator director joins Stability AI board

James Cameron, an Academy Award-winning director, has joined the Stability AI board of directors. One of the world’s top directors, Cameron, is known for pushing the boundaries of visual effects that required new inventions in movies such as Avatar, Terminator, and Titanic. He is indeed quite familiar with the most advanced technologies. However, there is a catch between him and AI: he has criticized AI throughout his career.

“I have spent my career seeking out emerging technologies that push the very boundaries of what’s possible, all in the service of telling incredible stories,” said Cameron. “I was at the forefront of CGI over three decades ago, and I have stayed on the cutting edge since. Now, the intersection of generative AI and CGI image creation is the next wave. The convergence of these two totally different engines of creation will unlock new ways for artists to tell stories in ways we could have never imagined. Stability AI is poised to lead this transformation. I am delighted to collaborate with Sean, Prem, and the Stability AI team as they shape the future of all visual media.”

Stability AI is best known for its text-to-image generative AI model, Stable Diffusion, released in 2022 and has seen over 150 million downloads. The model generates detailed images, and unlike DALL-E and Midjourney, it can run on consumer-grade hardware with a decent GPU with at least 4 GB of VRAM. Also, the company’s open models are among the most popular and widely adopted worldwide, with thousands of businesses incorporating them into creative workflows. Stability AI’s success is built on making these advanced AI tools accessible to a broad audience, from individual creators to large enterprises.

“James Cameron lives in the future and waits for the rest of us to catch up,” said Prem Akkaraju, CEO of Stability AI. “Stability AI’s mission is to transform visual media for the next century by giving creators a full stack AI pipeline to bring their ideas to life. We have an unmatched advantage to achieve this goal with a technological and creative visionary like James at the highest levels of our company. This is not only a monumental statement for Stability AI, but the AI industry overall.”

While James Cameron seems to endorse generative AI right now, he was not always fond of artificial general intelligence (AGI). Cameron’s Terminator and Terminator 2 movies directly warn the world about the dangers of AI and the potential rise of machines.

Yet, for now, it looks like he endorses generative AI, which does not pose an immediate threat to humanity. However, other content creators criticize it heavily as generation AI learns from content created by human beings, who may eventually lose their jobs. Then again, now that Cameron is on the Stability AI board, he may have an influence on the future development of generative AI.

“The next frontier in visual media will be forged by a true fusion of artist and technology, and Stability AI is leading the charge,” Akkaraju added.