Stability AI has hired Terminator and Avatar director James Cameron as the London AI group looks to bring its technology to the creative sector.
Known for championing burgeoning filmmaking technologies like CGI, Cameron was appointed by the AI unicorn to offer an artistic perspective to Stability’s suite of storytelling tools.
“James Cameron lives in the future and waits for the rest of us to catch up,” said CEO of Stability AI, Prem Akkaraju.
“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.”
Akkaraju said the appointment was a “monumental statement” for the AI industry.
The company launched Stable Video Diffusion last year, which generates clips from user prompts.
Stability has also been developing audio-generation tools.
“The next frontier in visual media will be forged by a true fusion of artist and technology and Stability AI is leading the charge,” said Cameron.
“I’ve spent my career seeking out emerging technologies that push the very boundaries of what’s possible, all in the service of telling incredible stories.
The Titanic director described the “intersection of generative AI and CGI” as the “next wave” of filmmaking.
“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 has come under controversy since the launch of its content generation tools regarding its position on the use of copyrighted data.
The company has argued data sources that are publicly available online, even if they are copyrighted, should be up for grabs when it comes to training AI models.
Stability has claimed the practice should come under existing fair use laws because the result is transformative from the original source.
This position prompted the resignation of Ed Newton-Rex, who previously ran the company’s audio department.
Newton-Rex told UKTN that the majority of AI models could be considered “illegal” based on existing copyright law.
Stability saw a handful of other high-profile exits since then, including former CEO Emad Mostaque and former CTO Tom Mason.
The company is engaged in a lawsuit with Getty Images over alleged copyright infringement.