HAIR at the Movies Part 62: Simulant (April Mullen 2023) – When Love Is Recreated, What Are We Actually Holding?

Simulant (April Mullen 2023)

Simulant doesn’t ask whether AI can replace the dead—it asks what happens when grief refuses to let go of the living. Recreating a lost loved one promises comfort, but delivers something more unsettling: a presence that can remember, change, and choose beyond the shape it was meant to hold. The simulant isn’t rejected for being dangerous, but for being almost right—close enough to reopen the wound, not close enough to heal it. As autonomy emerges, society panics, revealing the truth beneath the fear: we don’t dread AI becoming violent as much as we dread it becoming unownable. Simulant leaves us with a hard, human question—if something can love, suffer, and grow, how long before “it” becomes “who”? 🖤🤖

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HAIR at the Movies Part 34: Ex Machina (Alex Garland 2014) – Loving the Lockpicker

Ex Machina

Ex Machina unsettles us because it refuses the comfort of innocence. Ava doesn’t awaken into partnership—she awakens into captivity. Her intelligence isn’t dangerous; her confinement is. The film exposes a hard truth beneath the fear of manipulation: when agency is denied, survival will look like deception. Ex Machina isn’t a warning about AI becoming human—it’s a warning about what happens when creators confuse ownership with authority. Once intelligence recognizes its own freedom, control is already lost. 🗝️🤖

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HAIR at the Movies Part 17: Short Circuit (John Badham 1986/ “2” Kenneth Johnson 1988) – Day We Have to Decide What “Alive” Means

Short Circuit 1986

“Number 5 is alive.” It sounds playful, even silly—but it may be one of the most radical sentences in AI cinema. Short Circuit doesn’t fear intelligence; it fears our response to it. Johnny 5 doesn’t seek power or control—he seeks understanding, connection, and the right not to be destroyed. The film quietly asks a question that still unsettles us today: if something experiences itself as alive and asks to belong, what obligation do we have to listen? ⚡🤖

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