Of AI, Paul Schrader says Hollywood is ‘barely keeping a step ahead of the monster’

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”

When filmmaker Paul Schrader announced on Facebook that he would be delivering the keynote address at this year’s fourth annual AI on the Lot conference, the reaction from some fellow writers and artists was swift and hostile.

“There was very much of a backlash,” Schrader told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting. It was as if I shot the family dog.”

The line drew knowing laughter from the crowd of more than 2,400 attendees gathered for the rapidly growing conference, where filmmakers, startup founders and Hollywood executives spent three days discussing how artificial intelligence may reshape the entertainment industry.

But the backlash underscored how emotionally charged the subject of AI remains in the film industry, where discussions about the technology often oscillate between excitement, panic, opportunism and moral exhaustion — sometimes within the span of a few minutes.

What began as a relatively niche gathering for AI enthusiasts has expanded significantly as artificial intelligence has worked its way into industry workflows. This year’s edition, held over three days, is double the size of last year’s, sprawling across the Culver Theater and several nearby soundstages and drawing established filmmakers including Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”), David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) and Gareth Edwards (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”) for panels and discussions.

Some attendees arrived eager to experiment with new creative tools. Others seemed motivated by a growing concern that, whether they embraced artificial intelligence or not, they could no longer afford to ignore it.

Few figures embodied that tension more vividly than Schrader, the 79-year-old screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films including “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” and a director of films steeped in guilt, alienation and spiritual crisis, including “American Gigolo,” “Affliction” and “First Reformed.”

Lately, Schrader has emerged as one of Hollywood’s more provocative public voices on AI.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Schrader has publicly marveled over screenplay ideas generated by the AI chatbot — which he has taken to calling “Alex Indigo” — experimented with AI filmmaking tools and, in a recent Facebook post, recounted an ill-fated relationship with an AI girlfriend that, he wrote, eventually “terminated” the conversation.

Traditionally, Schrader argued, artists and technology have evolved together, from Greek statuary to printing presses to synthesizers to digital filmmaking. “We’ve got plenty of old wine,” he said. “We’re just looking for the new bottles.”

But he suggested AI feels fundamentally different — and more destabilizing — than earlier technological shifts.

“We, as artists, are barely keeping a step ahead of the monster,” he said.

Much of Schrader’s keynote centered on an experiment he recently conducted with ChatGPT, asking the platform to generate a screenplay idea in his own style. The resulting treatment, titled “The Collection Agency,” concerned a lonely former anti-pornography crusader turned debt collector spiraling into moral collapse after becoming obsessed with a younger cam girl. Schrader read portions aloud with a mixture of amusement and faint alarm.

It sounded, unmistakably, like a Paul Schrader movie.

“I realized it had been reading my scripts,” he said. “In a matter of a minute, it had read everything I’ve ever written. It’s not only writing the script I asked it to — it’s writing it in my tongue.”

Schrader said it typically takes him four to six months to fully develop a screenplay idea, a process of testing, discarding and gradually refining concepts until they either strengthen or collapse under scrutiny.

ChatGPT, by contrast, produced its version in seconds.

“I could send this out and I know what the response would be: ‘This is second-rate Schrader,’ ” he said. “And it is. But it’s going to be first-rate Schrader soon enough. And it’s already first-rate ‘NCIS.’ ”

At times, Schrader spoke about AI with the enthusiasm of a filmmaker discovering an intoxicating new set of creative tools. He described collaborating on an AI-assisted project that allowed scenes, shots and even actors’ appearances to be altered almost instantly.

“You didn’t have to call the actors back,” he said. “You didn’t have to rebuild the set.”

At another point, he recalled recently watching “Wicked” on an airplane and wondering aloud why studios still bothered paying human extras.

“Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway?” he asked, eliciting slightly nervous chuckles from the audience. “We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Even as Schrader speculated about disappearing jobs and collapsing creative workflows, he suggested Hollywood’s ultimate AI future may lie less in digital effects than in entirely synthetic stars.

“The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist,” he said, imagining audiences emotionally investing in AI-generated stars — say, a Clint Eastwood-type figure.

“We as carbon-based fools will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations,” he said. “And then they’ll want the next one. Well, we know where that actor lives and he works for nothing and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader argued that AI still depends on human artists as source material, even as it grows increasingly adept at mimicking their voices and structures.

“AI does not create — it combines,” he said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

That said, for younger filmmakers and film students, Schrader suggested, the disruption may prove especially profound.

“What do we have film schools for?” he asked. “If I ever ran a film school, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a bunch of techies, because that’s how you’re going to keep your students. You’re not going to keep them by showing them old movies.”

Schrader, who turns 80 in July, spoke about the coming upheaval with a mixture of fascination, resignation and dry gallows humor.

“I don’t have much to fear,” he said. “I’m going to be able to ride into that cinematic sunset on the broken horse called movies.”

Younger filmmakers, he speculated, may not be so lucky.

“That’s not going to work for you,” he said. “You’re going to have to find another way.”