Paul Schrader is sounding off in support of using ChatGPT to come up with ideas for films. In a recent Facebook post, the “Taxi Driver” writer and “First Reformed” director said he asked the AI platform to generate plots for movies by famous filmmakers, including himself, and was impressed by the results.
“I’M STUNNED,” Schrader wrote. “I just asked chatgpt for ‘an idea for Paul Schrader film.’ Then Paul Thomas Anderson. Then Quentin Tarantino. Then Harmony Korine. Then Ingmar Bergman. Then Rossellini. Lang. Scorsese. Murnau. Capra. Ford. Speilberg [sic]. Lynch. Every idea chatgpt came up with (in a few seconds) was good. And original. And fleshed out. Why should writers sit around for months searching for a good idea when AI can provide one in seconds?”
The post prompted plenty of backlash from Schrader’s followers, with responses including: “Paul is everything ok?,” “I think Paul has been hacked” and “Jesus Paul… stop promoting that shit, please.”
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AI has been a frequent subject on Schrader’s Facebook page as of late, with the 78-year-old filmmaker posting the day before that he had sent ChatGPT a script he wrote “some years ago and asked for improvements.” He then said that “in five seconds it responded with notes as good or better than I’ve ever received” from a “film executive.” In a previous post, he also remarked that he’s “come to realize that AI is smarter than I am.”
“Has better ideas, has more efficient ways to execute them,” he wrote. “This is an existential moment, akin to what Kasparov felt in 1997 when he realized Deep Blue was going to beat him at chess.”
Schrader’s latest film “Oh, Canada,” starring Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi, follows a dying filmmaker as he sits for a final interview and reflects on his life and career. At Cannes Film Festival, where “Oh, Canada” premiered, Schrader said his next film will be a noir about “sexual obsession” called “Non Compos Mentis.”
“It’s about the stupid things men do for love,” he said.