The death of jobs, or the greatest productivity tool of a generation? Your mileage may vary on Artificial Intelligence (AI), and it is clear that the same debate is raging across Hollywood. There have been strikes over it, and some creatives consider it the work of Satan. One who doesn’t is American Gigolo filmmaker Paul Schrader
In an interview with Vanity Fair, the man who wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull says it is just a tool, adding he has the perfect script in mind to write with this tool.
He also says that it’s coming is inevitable:
“I think we’re only two years away from the first AI feature.”
He knows many in the industry disagree with him:
“When you’re an author, you have to describe someone’s reaction. You use a code — you use a code of words, a certain number of letters, and so forth, and you express their facial reaction. An actor has their own code. Well, now you’re a pixelator, and you can create the face, and you can create the emotion on the face, and you can sculpt it the same way an author sculpts the reaction in a novel or a story.”
For the opposing view, there is Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro. Out doing press for Frankenstein on Netflix, he spoke with NPR and was blunt in his rejection:
“AI, particularly generative AI – I am not interested, nor will I ever be interested. I’m 61, and I hope to be able to remain uninterested in using it at all until I croak. … The other day, somebody wrote me an email, said, ‘What is your stance on AI?’ And my answer was very short. I said, ‘I’d rather die.’”
He also said he is not unaware of the parallels with the story of Frankenstein:
“I did want it to have the arrogance of Victor [Frankenstein] be similar in some ways to the tech bros. He’s kind of blind, creating something without considering the consequences and I think we have to take a pause and consider where we’re going.”
Frankenstein arrives on Netflix on November 7th.
