It’s already apparent that AI is going to disrupt professions like programming, medicine and law, but it appears to be just as poised to hit the very best creative roles as well.
Legenary screenwriter Paul Schrader, best known for his work on movies like Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), has said that he’s stunned by how good AI has become. He also said that ChatGPT is giving him better suggestions to improve a script than any industry executive had given him over his career.
“I just sent ChatGOT a script I’d written some years ago and asked for improvements. In five seconds it responded with notes as good or better than I’ve ever received film a film executive,” he posted on Facebook.
Schrafer also said that ChatGPT was able to give ideas for films in the styles of some of cinema’s most legendary directors, and he was stunned by how good they were. “I’M STUNNED. 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?” he said.
Schrader then said that watching AI’s progress has made him realize how Garry Kasparov would’ve felt when he was the world’s best human chess player, but was beaten by IBM’ Deep Blue computer. “I’ve just come to realize AI is smarter than I am. Has better ideas, has more efficient ways to execute them. This is an existential moment, akin to what Kasparov felt in 1997 when he realized Deep Blue was going to beat him at chess,” he siad.
It’s quite an endorsement. Paul Schrader is a world-class screenwriter, and has collaborated with directors like Martin Scorsese. For him to say that AI is giving inputs on scripts that are better than those he’s received from any film executive in his decades-long career, and that it can give perfectly good ideas in the style of luminaries like Ingmar Bergman and Quentin Tarantino, shows how effective AI might end up being in writing movie scripts going forward. And while lots of technical jobs like coding, law and investment banking are already in danger of being taken over by AI, it appears that some of the most creative fields aren’t safe either.