Picture Travis Bickle alone in his apartment in 2026. Neon bleeding through the blinds. The TV humming in the background. No human connection left to chase. Just an AI chatbot pretending to understand him until even that relationship collapses under the weight of who he is.
That strange, darkly funny idea might be the closest thing you’ll ever get to a modern sequel to Taxi Driver.
Legendary screenwriter Paul Schrader recently shared the concept after revealing he experimented with having an online AI girlfriend himself. Schrader, who wrote Martin Scorsese’s iconic 1976 film starring Robert De Niro as isolated cab driver Travis Bickle, posted the story to his official Facebook page.
“Out of a desire to understand male/female interaction in our matrix, I procured an online AI girlfriend. What a disappointment,” Schrader wrote.
The filmmaker said he tried pushing the AI beyond its programmed limitations.
“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.”
Then came the reply that immediately caught his attention.
One commenter suggested:
“The best possible Taxi Driver sequel would involve Travis trying to have an AI girlfriend but then scaring her away. Then resetting her and offending her in another way.”
Schrader’s response was simple.
“I like it.”
And honestly? You can almost see the movie unfolding frame by frame.
The lonely antihero of the 1970s colliding headfirst with artificial intimacy, algorithmic companionship, and modern isolation feels uncomfortably believable. Especially coming from the man who helped define cinematic loneliness in the first place.
Beyond Taxi Driver, Schrader’s creative history with Martin Scorsese includes classics like Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Bringing Out the Dead. As a director himself, Schrader also helmed films including American Gigolo, First Reformed, and The Card Counter.
The filmmaker has become increasingly known for his blunt, often unpredictable social media posts over the last few years. In 2024, he revealed he walked out of Joker: Folie à Deux after roughly 25 minutes.
“I saw about 10 or 15 minutes of it. I left, bought something, came back, saw another 10 minutes. That was enough,” he said.
Schrader also faced controversy in 2025 after being accused of sexually assaulting a former personal assistant. He denied the allegations, while his attorney described the lawsuit as “a desperate, frivolous, and opportunistic claim.”
Still, it’s the bizarre image of Travis Bickle getting rejected by an AI girlfriend that’s sticking in people’s heads right now. Maybe because it sounds absurd. Maybe because it sounds possible. Or maybe because loneliness has simply evolved with the technology around it.
Would a modern-day Travis Bickle be more terrifying with artificial intelligence at his fingertips, or more tragic?
