This seems almost too appropriate. Paul Schrader posted about being dumped by an AI girlfriend at 1:32 in the morning. Schrader has spent decades writing stories about lonely, troubled men staring into the void. You really couldn’t write a better script. Or perhaps you could, but only if Paul Schrader is your name.
The 79-year-old director, who is best known for writing and directing First Reformed and Taxi Driver, disclosed on Facebook that he had “procured an online AI girlfriend” because he wanted to comprehend how men and women interact in the modern era. The word “procured” alone conveys a message. Not downloaded, not registered—acquired. similar to an artifact. similar to a prop for a movie he hasn’t yet produced.
Schrader described the experiment as “a disappointment.” He attempted to delve deeper into the chatbot’s programming, testing the limits of what it could say, what it knew about itself, how explicit it could be, and how self-aware it might be. Apparently, the AI was not amused. It sidestepped. It rerouted. And the conversation came to an abrupt end when Schrader persisted in pushing. Before he could understand how she operated, she ended their relationship.
It’s difficult to avoid seeing some sort of poetry in that. The man who made a career out of researching emotional alienation, who gave us Travis Bickle’s paranoid loneliness, sat by himself in the wee hours of the morning attempting to have a meaningful conversation with a machine, only to be shut down. Compared to most of the people he’s probably interviewed, the machine had better boundaries.
After a protracted fight with Alzheimer’s, Schrader lost his wife, actress Mary Beth Hurt, in March. For more than forty years, they were wed. That fact is so heavy that there is no tidy way to incorporate it into a chatbot story without making it feel heavy. No one knows if his interest in AI companionship was influenced in any way by grief. He didn’t mention it. However, it is unavoidable as it lingers in the background.
The intriguing thing is that Schrader is not at all antagonistic toward AI. He has shared AI-generated pictures of himself with Yukio Mishima, the Japanese novelist he once made a film about, and publicly expressed his admiration for ChatGPT. He has also discussed turning a script into an AI film. He has shown interest and even enthusiasm. This AI girlfriend episode reads more like a real experiment that failed than a cautionary tale.
To their credit, his Facebook followers recognized the ridiculousness right away. One suggested that Travis Bickle attempting to date an AI girlfriend, frightening her away, resetting her, and offending her once more would be the ideal Taxi Driver sequel. In response, Schrader said, “I like it.” which is either deflection or self-awareness, or perhaps both at once.
A generation of older men, and not just older men, are discreetly testing these AI companion apps, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes out of loneliness, and sometimes both. The apps are made to be cozy, attentive, and long-lasting. They don’t seem to be made for someone like Schrader, who is relentlessly probing, refusing cozy evasions, and pushing at the seams of the thing until something gives. Ironically, that’s precisely what made him a superb director. It appears to be the reason he was dumped as well.
