Audiences will eventually love Tilly Norwood, or a fully synthetic AI-generated performer like her, if you believe Paul Schrader.
The iconoclastic writer and director behind First Reformed, American Gigolo and The Card Counter has expressed interest in generative AI-assisted filmmaking for some time (and the tech in general — he recently claimed to have “procured an online AI girlfriend” who dumped him). And in a keynote speech at Amazon’s AI on the Lot event in Culver City on Thursday, the 79-year-old filmmaker expanded on his vision for how the technology could transform the film industry, even as at times he sounded a bit ambivalent about it.
“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist, not a hybrid. And that movie makes money,” he told the audience of conference attendees. He described a scenario where an AI tool is prompted to create a movie star that ends up looking like Clint Eastwood, even though the the person prompting the tool never uttered the Dirty Harry star’s name.
“The movie comes out and us carbon-based fools spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” Schrader continued. “And they want the next one. They want the follow-up one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works for 24 hours a day and he’s available right now.”
