Werner Herzog is a pretty eccentric creative genius: he’s been shot during an interview, ate his own shoe and hauled a ship into the Peruvian jungle for a film. He’s the talented director who can stare right into the void and create masterpieces based on the tumultuous human condition: Reveries of the Connected World, Fitzcarraldo included. Aspiring filmmakers and curious spectators clamour to get inside Herzog’s head. Aside from his film masterclasses and his most recent offering that centres on a glorious volcanic eruption, the next best thing is engaging with the Wernerbot.

The Facebook chatbot emulates the no bullshit cult director, created by Van Gould and Chris Sheldon prior to his Lo and Behold documentary and latest Netflix venture Into the Inferno, as Daily Dot reports. According to Gould, the chatbot was birthed following a real life meeting with Herzog. “Werner stared me in the eyes and said, 'Read, read, read,’” he remembered. 

"It's the only chatbot that wants you to stop chatting and start reading," Gould added. “It seems natural that a Werner Herzog chatbot would want you to read instead of chatting with it.” 

Since it’s first IRL outing, the bot has received over 15,000 messages.

The German director has been pretty reluctant to embrace the Internet age, but when asked about digital clones that populated Twitter and Facebook with fake profiles, he told the Hollywood Reporter in 2013: “I let them be because I regard them as kinds of soldiers. Let them fight their fight out there in my name. They function like bodyguards.”

Here’s what one of them had to tell us.