At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, a number of directors have openly embraced generative A.I. Japanese humanist Hirokazu Koreeda (the director of Shoplifters, The Third Murder and Monster) is not among them — at least, not yet. However, his removed optimism on the technology’s future results in a strange mixed bag in his latest film, the grief-tinged Palme d’Or hopeful Sheep in the Box, which follows a couple in mourning who replace their dead son with an android copy.
Sci-fi films have long used mechanical beings to reflect our anxieties (as far back as the 1890s), but cyberpunk landmarks like Blade Runner were especially pivotal in how they utilized robot intelligence. The question of what makes us human has been beamed back to us through umpteen stories of what doesn’t — or what makes non-humans most human-like, in a world where humanity itself is conditional. However, in 2026, at a time when generative A.I. mimics consciousness and interaction on unprecedented scales (see also: Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader being dumped by his A.I. girlfriend), there exists a need for stories about artificial intelligence to evolve.
