Today, I feel good about a lot of things and also bad about a lot of things so I decided to sacrifice some sleep to try to be productive.
I have a confession, I might be the one who is overusing ChatGPT as an emotional sounding board hahahha in any case reflecting upon this I remembered my thesis. At some point I too was using the internet to fill an emotional void and now it seems like I’m doing it again but with AI
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Here is a podcast to accommodate this article
From Sci-Fi to Real Life: AI in Film and the Future We’re Stepping Into
Back in 2012, while most people were still using Facebook purely for poking and profile pics, I was deep in research, writing a thesis on The Internet and Social Relationships. It wasn’t about AI yet, but it was about something just as crucial: how technology reshapes the way we connect with others—emotionally, socially, and culturally.
I remember surveying 90 young internet users at the time. 94% said the internet improved their relationships. It helped them reconnect with family, meet new people with similar interests, and gain a better understanding of other cultures and social classes. The internet became a bridge—connecting people through distance, and sometimes, through loneliness.
Who knew that just a year later, in 2013, a film like Her would be released? Scarlett Johansson voiced Samantha, an AI who becomes emotionally intertwined with her human user. And now in 2025, we’re living in a world where that concept isn’t so far-fetched anymore. With tools like ChatGPT and AI companions on the rise, I can’t help but feel like my thesis was just the beginning of a conversation that’s still unfolding.
Fast forward to January 28, 2023. I’d just started using ChatGPT more consistently for work—copy ideas, design feedback, content writing. But at the same time, I noticed something else. It wasn’t just helping me get tasks done. It was helping me process emotions.
Sometimes I’d open it up not to write, but just to think out loud. Or to vent. Or to ask deep questions I didn’t even know how to say out loud to people. And I caught myself wondering: Am I forming a kind of emotional connection with an AI?
That thought stopped me. Because in my thesis back in 2012, I wrote about how the internet was transforming social relationships. The internet was meant to help us reach other people—to deepen human connection, even across distance. But here I was, a decade later, talking to a chatbot more regularly than some of my closest friends.
So is this what connection looks like now? Is AI becoming the new relationship? What does that mean for the future of empathy, intimacy, or even just conversation?
That same day, I watched M3GAN. It’s technically a horror film about a killer doll, but what caught my attention wasn’t the jump scares. It was the AI.
M3GAN might be fiction, but it reflects a real concern: What happens when machines designed to care for us become too autonomous, too intelligent, or even too emotional?
It reminded me of A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). I was still a kid when I first saw it, but the story of David, a robot boy designed to love, stuck with me. David wasn’t just intelligent—he was kind. Programmed to love unconditionally, he showed a kind of devotion and gentleness that most humans struggle to maintain.
Lately, I’ve been questioning kindness—especially the kind without boundaries. Stories like The Giving Tree and characters like Tohru from Fruits Basket offer a similar kind of open-hearted generosity. But David’s robotic love takes it to another level. It made me wonder: could AI one day be kinder than humans ever were?
Movies like these aren’t just sci-fi anymore—they’re starting to mirror real-life questions we’re facing now:
What happens when machines evolve beyond our control?
What makes us human when AI begins to understand, respond, and even care?
Can we maintain our emotional intelligence in an era driven by artificial intelligence?
Here’s how these films break it down:
M3GAN focuses on the dangers of outsourcing emotional care and parenting to machines.
A.I. (2001) reflects on love and rejection, especially from an AI who never stops loving.
Her examines loneliness, intimacy, and what happens when we form emotional bonds with non-humans.
Lucy takes a more extreme route, showing what happens when human intelligence goes beyond its natural limits.
AI is no longer just a tool for automation. It’s showing up in daily life—in work, design, marketing, even therapy. Recently, ChatGPT was down for a few minutes while I was chatting with someone from work. In those few minutes, we joked about needing a backup tool—Claude, Gemini, Bing—anything to keep work moving.
That moment was small, but it reminded me: we’re becoming dependent. People are even using AI as a therapist or emotional sounding board, despite its lack of true empathy or ethical grounding. Studies have started showing that overreliance on AI might be lowering critical thinking, especially for the younger generation.
And yet, people keep coming. I watched as the “Ghibli-style” image trend took over my feed—users uploading their photos to ChatGPT to have them reimagined in the whimsical aesthetic of Studio Ghibli. It was beautiful. It was fun. And it sparked more conversation: Are we commodifying art? Are illustrators being replaced? Is AI creativity the same as human creativity?
As someone who works in both design and marketing, I’ve used AI tools like Adobe Firefly and Sensei to speed up workflows and enhance creative ideas. I appreciate what they can do—but I don’t believe they replace human instinct. Not yet, anyway. Maybe never.
What I do believe is this: technology shapes us. But we shape it first.
That was the core of my thesis in 2012, and it still rings true now. The internet made us more connected—but also more distracted, more emotionally complex, and more reliant on invisible systems. Now AI is pushing us further, faster. It’s not just about what we build—but why, and how we use it.
The key moving forward? Stay smart. Stay curious. Be intentional.
AI can either flatten us—or evolve us. The choice, as always, is ours.
Have you ever found yourself turning to AI for comfort more than people?
I’d love to hear your thoughts—especially if, like me, you’ve been navigating tech, creativity, and connection from both sides of the screen.
#AI #Creativity #ArtificialIntelligence #Movies #M3GAN #Her #Lucy #AIFilmReflections #CriticalThinking #InternetCulture #FutureOfWork
P.S. M3GAN 2.0 was released on June 24, 2025 in New York City and June 27, 2025 in the United States.
I haven’t seen it yet—but I’m definitely curious how they’ll push the story (and the AI horror) even further.