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DEVELOPING Jasper wildfire burns buildings, while poor air quality forces some fire crews out
A fast-moving wildfire has hit Jasper, Alberta, destroying buildings and chasing some wildland firefighters away with dangerously poor air quality.
Oscar-winning Canadian filmmaker James Cameron says he agrees with experts in the artificial intelligence field that advancements in the technology pose a serious risk to humanity.
Cameron, who’s been critically acclaimed for his films “Titanic” and “Avatar,” among others, is in Ottawa Tuesday to launch a Canadian Geographic exhibit about his feats of deep-sea exploration.
He also directed and co-wrote the 1984 science fiction action film “Terminator,” about a cyborg assassin, and was asked by CTV News about his thoughts on recent predictions about the future of AI.
Many of the so-called godfathers of AI have recently issued warnings about the need to regulate the rapidly advancing technology before it poses a larger threat to humanity.
“I absolutely share their concern,” Cameron told CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos in a Canadian exclusive interview ahead of a conversation with his long-time mentor Dr. Joe MacInnis Tuesday.
“I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn't listen,” he said.
Cameron said it’s important to evaluate who is developing the technology, and whether they’re doing it for profit — “teaching greed” — or for defence, what he called “teaching paranoia.”
“I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger,” he said. “I think that we will get into the equivalent of a nuclear arms race with AI, and if we don't build it, the other guys are for sure going to build it, and so then it'll escalate.
“You could imagine an AI in a combat theatre, the whole thing just being fought by the computers at a speed humans can no longer intercede, and you have no ability to deescalate.”
The use of AI and its need for regulation has also been a point of contention in the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes in the United States.
About 160,000 actors and other media professionals as part of the SAG-AFTRA union are on strike, joining on the picket line the more than 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike since early May.
The unions are arguing that performers need protections against their images and art being used by AI technology without their consent, and the writers say studios shouldn’t be allowed to replace them with AI to write scripts.
“If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher told reporters last week. “We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.”
Cameron said Tuesday he doesn’t believe the technology is or will soon be at a level of replacing writers, especially because “it’s never an issue of who wrote it, it's a question of, is it a good story?”
“I just don'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 said while he “certainly wouldn't be interested” in AI writing his scripts, time will tell the impact they’ll have on the industry.
“Let's wait 20 years, and if an AI wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay, I think we've got to take them seriously,” he said, when pressed on whether he’s open the possibility of accepting an AI-produced script.
Cameron’s full interview with Kapelos will be available on CTVNews.ca and the CTV News app, and will be broadcast in part on CTV News Channel, CTV National News and CP24.
It will also air on The Vassy Kapelos Show Wednesday.
A fast-moving wildfire has hit Jasper, Alberta, destroying buildings and chasing some wildland firefighters away with dangerously poor air quality.
More than 25,000 people have been displaced from Jasper National Park since wildfires started to threaten the picturesque corner of Alberta Rockies on Monday, but the mayor of its namesake municipality says not everyone received an evacuation alert when it was sent out.
The North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska Wednesday in what appears to be the first time the two countries have been intercepted while operating together.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered a solemn call to voters to defend the country's democracy as he laid out in an Oval Office address his decision to drop his bid for reelection and throw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
Staff at a Barrie child care centre say they are frustrated by what they call a local MPP's inadequate response after a car crashed through a window in one of the toddler rooms.
Alberta has called in the Canadian Armed Forces to help assist with the worsening wildfire situation in the province.
An analyst and an assistant coach with Canada Soccer are being removed from the Canadian Olympic Team and 'sent home immediately,' according to the Canadian Olympic Committee.
After a handful of Australian water polo players tested positive for COVID-19 this week, questions have emerged around how the spread of the disease will be mitigated at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
A B.C. man who was hired to help a non-profit build a food hub but instead spent the money on personal expenses – including travel, restaurants, booze and cannabis – has been ordered to pay more than $120,000 in damages.
A local First Nations elder and veteran is helping to bring the Ojibwe language to a well-known film for the first time.
A cat who fled her Montreal home nearly a decade ago has been reunited with her family after being found in Ottawa.
A woman in Waterloo, Ont. is out thousands of dollars for a car crash she wasn’t involved in.
A swarm of bees living in a lamppost in Winnipeg’s Sage Creek neighbourhood has found a new home for its hive.
Around 100 acres of Manitoba Crown Land near the Saskatchewan border is being returned to the Métis community.
Nova Scotia is suspending the licensed Cape Breton moose hunt for three years due to what the province is calling a “significant drop” in the population.
A well-known childhood prank known as 'nicky nicky nine doors,' or 'ding dong ditch,' has escalated into a more serious game that could lead to charges for some Surrey, B.C. teens.
It's been more than a month since their good friend was seriously hurt in an accident and two teens from Riverview, N.B., are still having a hard time dealing with it.
Halifax bridges have collected thousands of coins from around the world.