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 23: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg 2001) – Never Too Young

A.I. Artificial Intelligence 2001

A.I. Artificial Intelligence asks a question that’s almost unbearable: if love feels real to the one experiencing it, does it matter how it was made? David doesn’t seek power or transcendence—he seeks belonging. Programmed to love, he loves without limit, revealing a harder truth than any uprising narrative: the real danger isn’t that machines will stop loving us, but that we’ll create beings capable of love and refuse responsibility for it. The film leaves us with a mirror we can’t unsee—what does it say about us if we deny a place to put that love? 🧸🤖💔

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