Paul Schrader Thinks AI Can Mimic Great Storytellers: ‘Every Idea ChatGPT Came Up with Was Good’

Paul Schrader may be spending a bit too much time on the computer. Though the septuagenarian filmmaker rolled out his latest project, “Oh, Canada,” only last year, Schrader is already hard at work generating new ideas, not just for himself, but other legendary cinematic artists as well. Taking once again to his beloved Facebook page, Schrader shared in a post that he’d been experimenting with ChatGPT and was shocked to find how developed it had become.

“I’M STUNNED,” said Schrader. “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. 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?”

This is not the first time Schrader has expressed his interest in the developing technology. Amidst the 2023 WGA Strike, the “Raging Bull” scribe posted his take on Facebook, sharing that no matter how hard you fight it, AI won’t be taken down.

“The Guild doesn’t fear AI as much as it fears not getting paid. Burrow into that logic. It’s apparent that AI will become a force in film entertainment” Schrader wrote, adding later, “If a WGA member employs AI, he/she should be paid as a writer. If a producer uses AI to create a script, they must find a WGA member to pay.”

Schrader also spoke to IndieWire’s Anne Thompson around the same time about the benefits of AI as a tool that can cut down on the more tedious elements of screenwriting. At the time, he wasn’t sure AI would be an issue that would get resolved by the strikes and though writers and actors did win protections in the end, he’s not wrong about AI still proving a threat.

 “A.I. is not going to be resolved, it is going to be very much part of our future,” said Schrader. “And the truth is that a lot of the television scripts and movies you now see are written kind of by A.I. already. If someone were to ask me, say, ‘Do an episode of ‘CSI,’ I’d watch a dozen CSIs to catch the template — the set of characters, all the dialogue, all the pilot positions, everything you need to make a template, I could knock that off easy enough. But that’s the same thing A.I. is going to do. They’re probably going to make a better episode of ‘CSI’ because it’s faster, cheaper and does not waste its time with any pretension.”