Legendary 'Taxi Driver' Writer Paul Schrader Makes Bizarre Claim He Had an 'AI Girlfriend': 'What a Disappointment'

As AI continues to take an increasingly prominent place at the center of our collective culture, many celebrities are warning about the dangers surrounding the emerging technology.

Conversely, one artist who isn't altogether afraid of artificial intelligence is iconic Taxi Driver writer and accomplished filmmaker Paul Schrader, who recently shared the news that he actually had an AI girlfriend (albeit for a very short time).

Taking to Facebook, the 79-year-old Raging Bull writer revealed that he had attempted to form a romantic connection to an artificial intelligence chatbot in the hopes of "understanding male/female interaction" a bit better.

After pressing his "AI girlfriend" to learn more about its programming, however, Schrader said his digital companion ultimately severed ties with the writer, "terminating" the conversation between the two.

"Out of a desire to understand male/female interaction in our matrix, I procured an online AI girlfriend," the American Gigolo director said. "What a disappointment. 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.

Of course, this is far from the first time Schrader has expressed interest in AI and its application to modern culture. Previously, Schrader told Vanity Fair that he believes we're only a few years away from the advent of the first movie entirely made by AI: a terrifying reality for most within the larger entertainment industry.

"I think we're only two years away from the first AI feature," he said. "I was just on the phone with someone today about a script I had, and I said, ‘You know, this would be a perfect script to do all AI … It's just a tool.' When you're an author, you have to describe someone's reaction. You use a code - you use a code of words, a certain number of letters and so forth, and you [describe] their facial reaction. An actor has their own code. Well, [with AI] you're a pixelator, and you can create the face, and you can create the emotion on the face, and you can sculpt it the same way an author sculpts the reaction in a novel or a story."

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This story was originally published May 20, 2026 at 11:04 AM.