29 MAG 2026 · AI. You may have noticed it's everywhere now — in your phone, your fridge, the suspiciously enthusiastic email your boss "wrote" last Tuesday. And cinema, bless its little reactive heart, has been trying to warn us about this for fifty years. The problem is we keep not listening, partly because the warnings have so often arrived in the shape of a sexy lady robot, which is its own diagnosis of the problem.This week, Pete is joined by https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2854747/ and https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1224453/ for a triptych spanning five decades of artificial intelligence horror: https://letterboxd.com/film/demon-seed/ (1977), https://letterboxd.com/film/cam/ (2018), and https://letterboxd.com/film/companion-2025/ (2025). Three films, one increasingly nervous question: what exactly are we asking of AI, and what does it keep becoming anyway?The conversation runs the lineage of synthetic women in cinema — a trope factory that stretches from https://letterboxd.com/film/metropolis/ through https://letterboxd.com/film/the-stepford-wives/, https://letterboxd.com/film/blade-runner/, https://letterboxd.com/film/weird-science/, https://letterboxd.com/film/her/, https://letterboxd.com/film/ex-machina-2015/, https://letterboxd.com/film/m3gan/, and https://letterboxd.com/film/subservience-2024/, with a foundational-film round that lands on https://letterboxd.com/film/wargames/ and https://letterboxd.com/film/2001-a-space-odyssey/. Along the way: the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paperclip_maximizer as a way of understanding what Proteus actually is, the cultural weight of releasing a forced-pregnancy AI horror four years after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade, platform terms-of-use as the modern book of the vampire, and the genuinely surprising argument that the most hopeful film in the set is the one where a robot drives off into the sunset with all the money.There are detours, because of course there are: villain-era https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4425051/, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4965072/ doing the robot, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7393303/ sliding her own intelligence to one hundred percent, and Tommy's new and frankly concerning bedtime ritual.The films:
- https://letterboxd.com/film/demon-seed/ (1977), dir. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0131910/, adapted from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Koontz novel, starring https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001046/
- https://letterboxd.com/film/cam/ (2018), dir. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3771823/, written by https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9807731/, starring https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5483400/
- https://letterboxd.com/film/companion-2025/ (2025), dir. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1289733/, produced by https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1199107/
Also referenced: https://letterboxd.com/film/colossus-the-forbin-project/, https://letterboxd.com/film/westworld/ (1973), https://letterboxd.com/film/rosemarys-baby/, https://letterboxd.com/film/the-omen/, https://letterboxd.com/film/get-out-2017/, https://letterboxd.com/film/promising-young-woman/, https://letterboxd.com/film/the-invitation-2015/, https://letterboxd.com/film/assassination-nation/, https://letterboxd.com/film/barbarian-2022/.
- (00:00) - Welcome to Sitting in the Dark
- (01:29) - The AI Experience
- (04:26) - Foundational AI Films
- (05:42) - Demon Seed
- (25:55) - Cam
- (42:16) - Companion
- (01:04:46) - Coming Attractions ... TBA!
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