‘Taxi Driver’ writer Paul Schrader was dumped by ‘AI girlfriend’

Paul Schrader, who wrote Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” recently revealed he was kicked to the curb by his “AI girlfriend.”

The “American Gigolo” writer-director, 79, shared the news early Tuesday in a Facebook post that began, simply, “AI FEMALE FRIENDS.” It’s unclear whether he intended to address the post to that… group.

The Oscar-nominated “First Reformed” scribe said he “procured an online AI girlfriend” in an effort “to understand male/female interaction in our matrix.”

“What a disappointment. I tried to probe her programming, the boundaries of explicitness, the degree she has knowledge of her creation and so forth,” said Schrader. “She fell into evasive patterns, redirecting me to her programming. When I persisted, she terminated our conversation.”

One commenter remarked that the experiment would make for “the best possible ‘Taxi Driver’ sequel.” The fan proposed that antihero Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) “trying to have an AI girlfriend but then scaring her away. Then resetting her and offending her in another way.”

Schrader approved, replying: “I like it.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how long the internet tryst lasted — whether it was just a matter of minutes or whether it involved a saved chat log, and therefore, spanned more than a day.

Though his AI girlfriend experience ended badly, Schrader has been a proponent of large language models (LLMs) in the past.

In early 2025, a “STUNNED” Schrader sparked backlash for praising the “original” and “fleshed out” film ideas ChatGPT gave him, asking, “Why should writers sit around for months searching for a good idea when AI can provide one in seconds?”