Legendary Hollywood screenwriter Paul Schrader said his AI girlfriend dumped him after he “probed” a little too closely.
The 79-year-old, best known for writing “Taxi Driver” and co-writing “Raging Bull,” had no qualms about sharing his tale of woe to all of Facebook, stigma be damned.
“Out of a desire to understand male/female interaction in our matrix, I procured an online AI girlfriend. What a disappointment,” Schrader posted on Tuesday. “I tried to probe her programming, the boundaries of explicitness, the degree she has knowledge of her creation and so forth. She fell into evasive patterns, redirecting me to her programming. When I persisted, she terminated our conversation.”
One commenter turned his anecdote into a suggestion for future projects. Referencing Schrader’s 1976 classic film, starring Robert De Niro and directed by Martin Scorsese, he replied, “The best possible ‘Taxi Driver’ sequel would involve Travis trying to have an AI girlfriend but then scaring her away. Then resetting her and offending her in another way.”
Schrader replied, “I like it.”
It’s no surprise that the film writer is casually promoting AI. He was singing the praises all the way back in January 2025, claiming that it was a useful tool for creative brainstorming, even for ideas based on his own work.
“I’M STUNNED,” Schrader wrote at the time in a post that generated a ton of backlash. “I just asked chatgpt for ‘an idea for Paul Schrader film.’ Then Paul Thomas Anderson. Then Quentin Tarantino. Then Harmony Korine. Then Ingmar Bergman. Then Rossellini. Lang. Scorsese. Murnau. Capra. Ford. Speilberg [sic]. Lynch. Every idea chatgpt came up with (in a few seconds) was good. And original. And fleshed out. Why should writers sit around for months searching for a good idea when AI can provide one in seconds?”
He had several other similar AI-related posts, including one that said, “in five seconds it responded with notes as good or better than I’ve ever received.” Schrader also admitted that he’s “come to realize that AI is smarter than I am.”
“Has better ideas, has more efficient ways to execute them,” he wrote in one post. “This is an existential moment, akin to what Kasparov felt in 1997 when he realized Deep Blue was going to beat him at chess.”
His posts come at a critical juncture for AI as people take sides on how and when it should be used. This extends to many industries, including Hollywood, with actors, directors, and other creative professionals weighing in on the topic.
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