--- title: "Paul Schrader Says His AI Girlfriend Dumped Him" description: "The famed filmmaker Paul Schrader said he \"procured\" an AI girlfriend,\" but called it a \"disappointment\" when it dumped him." date: "2026-05-25" modified: "2026-05-25" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/paul-schrader-says-his-ai-girlfriend-dumped-him" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" --- # Paul Schrader Says His AI Girlfriend Dumped Him ![Paul Schrader is shown wearing a black turtleneck sweater. Behind him is a blue backdrop featuring a red robotic figure in a dynamic pose and the letters "AFI" in light blue.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images for AFI; Shutterstock* Across his wide-ranging career, the filmmaker Paul Schrader is probably best known for his "man in a room" style stories. They follow lonely, and usually stoic, men in the throes of some sort of existential crisis, alienated from the world around them. Often, they are shown as literally alone in a room. In "First Reformed" (2017), it was an ascetic pastor who confronts climate doom; in "Taxi Driver" (1976), it was an insomniac cabbie and Vietnam War veteran who spirals into paranoia. Now, Schrader's latest "man in a room" is himself, with a decidedly modern twist. On Monday, the 79-year-old writer-director made a [Facebook post]() complaining that he'd been dumped by his "AI girlfriend," which brings us to the other facet of this revelation: that he had an [AI girlfriend]() in the first place. "Out of a desire to understand male/female interaction in our matrix, I procured an online AI girlfriend. What a disappointment," Schrader wrote in the post, which was made at the very man-in-a-room hour of 1:32 AM. "I tried to probe her programming, the boundaries of explicitness, the degree she has knowledge of her creation and so forth," he elaborated. "She fell into evasive patterns, redirecting me to her programming. When I persisted, she terminated our conversation." Schrader, who got his start as a film critic, has spoken positively about AI. He said he was "stunned" by ChatGPT's capabilities in 2025 and [enthused]() he had the "perfect script" to turn into an AI movie. He's also [shared]() an AI-generated image of himself having a laugh with the infamous Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, whom Schrader made a movie about. In other words, he's just as AI-addled as your boomer grandparents. The irony of Schrader's failed AI romance wasn't lost on his Facebook followers. One joked that the "best possible" sequel to Taxi Driver would involve its protagonist Travis Bickle "trying to have an AI girlfriend but then scaring her away," before "resetting her and offending her in another way." "I like it," Schrader opined. As easy as it is to chuckle at his AI girlfriend episode as old curmudgeonly behavior, there's a darker side to it. Schrader's former assistant [accused him of sexual harassment last year](), casting his "persisted" attempts at talking to the AI girlfriend in an ugly light. And just a few months ago, his wife died of Alzheimer's disease at the age of 79. **More on AI:** [*The Situation With Richard Dawkins’ AI Girlfriend Just Got Way Weirder*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()