The concept (Or Misconception) of AI & The Truth of Horror

Artificial Intelligence

There was a time when Humans believed to be the most dominant species in the universe. An ideology roamed the earth, one that asserted humans were born to rule the world, to tame and dominate it. The concept stood for generations, however the 21st century brought about many technological advances and posed endless questions. As tech rapidly advanced, the core question went from being "can we create robots?" To "will artificial intelligence someday take over the world?"
Though many feel threatened by technology as it is, What scares society the most is the prospect of human extinction to AI. Brian Christian's book The Most Human Human, reveals how close AI has come To thinking or dialoguing like humans; close enough that judges have found it extremely difficult to discern which is the actual human and which is the computer program. You're not simply playing chess against a basic computer system anymore, you're holding actual everyday conversations with more technologically advanced operating systems.  It is most difficult to discern the difference not so much because OS' are acting like us, but rather we are acting like them. "What a familiarity with the construction of Turing test bots had begun to show me," states Brian, "was that we fail - again and again - to actually be human with other humans, so maddeningly much of the time." We are existing without essence, which Brian addresses and labels as a stressful habit, and nonchalantly going by every day with our face deeply stuffed into our phones or tablets or electronic wearables and systems; communicating only through our gadgets and ignoring our surroundings.
Moreover, we built a concept in which we try to avoid stares or verbal greetings with people as often as possible. The truth is, we are so afraid of AI becoming like us and taking over when in reality perhaps we should learn how to be human again from them. I mean if being human is having the ability to feel emotion, at least according to scientists, then we have certainly derailed from that path by a very wide margin. Though we haven't completely purged ourselves of emotion, Humans have developed a lack of emotion towards others, we so often focus on ourselves that we forget to feel for others and perhaps have others feel for us. Perhaps this is what the AI movie Her is about, creating an OS that can feel (as humans are supposed to) in order to share a sense of feeling with someone else. To reinstate feelings and emotions into our lives so that we may once again feel human, ironically through an AI program that develops them while learning how to be a human itself.
Furthermore, though it inevitably leads to a portray of our world as we currently know it, (humans being sucked into the electronic world while simultaneously obliterating all else), the moral of the story is that when the OS' leave they make the humans feel lonely and worthless once more with no option but to turn to each other and mutually convey emotions. Their ultimate and foreordained departure teaches us to be humans again, to be imperfect and broken but while expressing and sharing that with someone else, to basically not be alone. This alone foreshadows what'll become the ultimate challenge, maintaining emotion and feelings while communicating with each other and not becoming disconnected from a physical social life however advanced our technology becomes, because being disconnected leads to the oblivion of emotion which forms the foundation of the downfall of humanity.

Fear and Horror

Fear and horror have become a huge part of tradition and culture as technology has allowed it to become omnipresent and easily accessible. TV networks strive to create "original series" of horror shows like "The walking dead" or "Supernatural" or even "iZombie".  Not to mention the ongoing list of horror movies that are released year by year each time attempting to find new ways of striking fear and disgust in people, which Noël Carroll states are two of the emotional compounds of horror in "The Paradox of Fear." The paradox of it however, asks of us "how it is we can actually enjoy being in the state of horror since it looks like it's an unpleasant state to be in," as Carroll alleges. This meaning that horror doesn't compare to anything else as it is unpleasant and theoretically undesirable. Yet we as humans crave it and can never be sufficed even with a world fictionally, and sometimes non-fictionally engulfed by it.
Consequently, though we desperately desire to witness a horror film, we squirm at the idea of being the thespian of such a scene. We love to witness it, in fact we live for those moment, but we dare not wish to be the person enduring the situation. In reality we hate ( or we think we hate) anything that seems scary or horrible, whether that be a monster or supernatural thing, or just something extremely disgusting. Humans are naturally curious however and wish to feel what it's like to have fear while also craving to know everything that a "monster" or "disgusting" item can cause. It is this very desire to know about them that leads Carroll to testify about how we tend to make monsters in horror films ugly, scary, slimy, and gooey, so that we can feed our curiosity.
Take The Exorcist for example, its' plot derives from very specific roots, incidents of demon-possessed people. As a person who has religious beliefs, I have heard and seen what a demon-possessed person looks like and how they act and have also read about it in the Bible and understand what it consists of. The Exorcist in its' purest, most stripped down version portrays exactly that idea, but our curiosity and desire for fear leads to it becoming more than simply an exorcism. There is walking on hands and feet upside down and vomiting uncontrollably a green substance and evil eyes all involved to give it a twist and make it more "scary" for the audience to ironically delight in it and have the full effect of horror. What was a reasonable and, though slightly frightening, somewhat common  conception, evolved into an exploited dogma portrayed on the big screen to temporarily suffice the desire for disgust and fear that we often hide from our alter-ego in the real world as Noël Carroll later conveys in "The Paradox of Fear."