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Perhaps best known as the screenwriter of Taxi Driver, Paul Schrader recently embarked on another writing intensive project: landing an AI girlfriend. And much like that famous film, end result of said “relationship” wasn’t exactly a happy ending.
In a recent Facebook post, Schrader said that when faced with a “desire to understand male/female interaction in our matrix,” he attempted to “procure an online AI girlfriend.” While their initial conversation proved stimulating enough, Schrader called the failed experiment “a disappointment.” Well, with poetry like that unfurled onto fair maiden’s ear, how could a bona fide love affair not instantly blossom?
“I tried to probe her programming, the boundaries of explicitness, the degree she has knowledge of her creation and so forth,” Schrader wrote. “She fell into evasive patterns, redirecting me to her programming. When I persisted, she terminated our conversation.”
This is, of course, not Schrader’s first entanglement with AI. Back in January 2025, the filmmaker made some waves online when he revealed that he’d asked ChatGPT for help in generating movie ideas, saying that he was “stunned” at the experience.
Added Schrader, “Every idea ChatGPT came up with (in a few seconds) was good. And original. And fleshed out. Why should writers sit around for months searching for a good idea when AI can provide one in seconds?”
At least this time around Schrader’s AI experience generated at least one story idea (we’ll leave its final quality up to you.) One Facebook commenter suggested a Taxi Driver sequel where Travis Bickle “tries to have an AI girlfriend but then [keeps] scaring her away. Then resetting her and offending her in another way.” To which Schrader responded, “I like it.”
On the one hand, we can understand AI’s appeal to Schrader. His wife of 42 years, actress Mary Beth Hurt, died earlier this spring, and finding love and personal connection at age 79 can’t be an easy thing. At the same time, it shouldn’t be lost on any of us that the man who wrote cinema’s most isolated and dangerous loner should really understand the significance of social relationships and the echo chamber often perpetuated by popular culture (especially on the sometimes tenuous male psyche). At the end of the day, if you really want a deep and probing connection, maybe a resource-sucking computer program ain’t your lady love.
For more from Schrader, see where he pops up on our list of the 100 best films of the 2010s.
And, hey, if you still need a really weird and intense love story, Mr. Schrader, just go ahead and re-watch Forever Mine.
English (US) · 