Iconic screenwriter turns to AI girlfriend after wife’s death
Film writer Paul Schrader heartbreakingly turned to an AI girlfriend after his wife’s death, sparking concern among friends who fear the 79-year-old Hollywood legend is retreating into solitude after decades at the center of American cinema.
RadarOnline.com the author of can reveal Taxi driver And Furious bull opened up about the unusual experiment less than two months after the death of actress Mary Beth Hurt, who died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Schrader, one of the defining creative forces behind the gritty film movement associated with Martin Scorsese – and who is known for transforming American cinema through his gritty scripts, existential stories, controversial characters and decades of uncompromising filmmaking – shared the deeply personal revelation in a Facebook post in which he described how he tried to understand modern relationships through artificial intelligence.
The writer’s comments come amid a growing debate in Hollywood and Silicon Valley over AI companion apps, which have soared in popularity among older and isolated users seeking emotional connection.
“Because I wanted to understand male-female interactions in our matrix, I acquired an online AI girlfriend,” Schrader wrote.
The lone filmmaker also admitted that the experience quickly left him disillusioned.
He complained: ‘What a disappointment. I tried to explore her programming, the limits of explicitness, the extent of her knowledge of her creation, and so on.
“She fell into avoidance patterns and referred me to her programming. When I persisted, she ended our conversation.”
A source close to Schrader told us: “Paul has spent his life exploring loneliness, masculinity, guilt and emotional isolation through his scripts, so those around him were saddened rather than shocked that he would experiment with an AI relationship after losing Mary Beth.
“Friends worry that he is grieving in a very lonely way. He has always been intellectually curious about technology and storytelling, but there is a sense that this also reflects how lonely life has become for him since her death. It feels like he is now sad and lonely.”
Schrader has repeatedly expressed skepticism about artificial intelligence, despite acknowledging its growing influence on filmmaking and storytelling. Last month he criticized the flood of synthetic content online, warning of the way “evil artificial ‘human’ images are flooding FB like a tsunami.”
Still, the veteran filmmaker suggested he remains fascinated by the creative possibilities of the technology.
“I knew it would be VERY fast, but I thought it would get better at a pace similar to getting bigger,” Schrader wrote, discussing his mixed feelings about AI-generated storytelling.
Schrader married Hurt in 1983, and the couple remained together for more than four decades.
On March 31, he publicly announced her death by posting an entry from his late father’s diary reflecting on the death of Schrader’s mother decades earlier.
“NOVEMBER 23, 1978. My father kept a meticulous and finely printed diary,” Schrader wrote.
“On Thanksgiving 1978, he wrote simply, ‘Joan died at 12:20 p.m.’ Nothing more. Joan was his wife and my mother. He was made of stern stuff. I’ve looked at this post over the years and wondered how I would feel in his place. Now I’m in that place.”
The couple’s daughter, Molly, later confirmed the news in her own tribute, writing, “Yesterday morning we lost my mother, Mary Beth, to Alzheimer’s after a decade-long battle with the disease.”
“She was an actress, a wife, a sister, a mother, an aunt, a friend, and she took on all those (roles) with grace and gentle ferocity.”
