Paul Schrader is opening up about his relationship with AI.
The Taxi Driver screenwriter took to Facebook, where he revealed that he “procured an online AI girlfriend,” but the program later broke things off.
“Out of a desire to understand male/female interaction in our matrix, I procured an online AI girlfriend. What a disappointment,” he wrote. “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.”
Schrader did not detail when he acquired his AI girlfriend. His wife, Mary Beth Hurt, died in March. The two were married for over four decades after tying the knot in 1983.
And this is not the first time the Oscar nominee has opened up about his interest in the technology. In October 2025, Schrader told Vanity Fair that he’s working on a script that would feature the first all-AI project.
“I think we’re only two years away from the first AI feature,” he said in the feature. “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.”
Also on Facebook, Schrader began sharing his own film reviews on the social platform. Though he further told Vanity Fair that AI may deliver better criticism than a critic because the technology does not have any bias.
He explained, “AI is taking over film coverage, as you must know. AI does better coverage than the average coverage. And AI doesn’t have to favor anybody. Often, when you’re doing coverage, you get a hint that the person who’s paying you wants you to like this. You can’t give that information to AI.”