Awakening the Climax of Memory:A ‘Slice’ of Thought Drawn from Humans,Film,and Artificial Intelligence

Human understanding of the climax of memory has evolved through a progressive process from the unconscious, to the subconscious, and then to consciousness. Episodic memory plays a crucial role in this process, determining how individuals break and recombine slices of their self-narrative. Intense emotional experiences serve as the backdrop of this entire process, determining the fun and meaningfulness of the narrative. However, with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) , humans seem to be entering another dimension of agency—one in which they are both fragmented into slices and simultaneously experience emotions in this fragmented state, all while dissolving within the tool-like nature of AI, or in other words, under human “absolute” control over AI. Film, too, has been fragmented into various forms of humanized or intelligentized possibilities, and its identity has undergone a meaningful shift. This article adopts a phenomenological approach and uses film as a starting point. It explores, through a logical progression from the perceivable (the actual reality of the narrative) , to the sensed (the psychological reality of emotion) , and to the known (the higher-dimensional reality of emotional generation) , the relationship between humans and AI. Ultimately, it finds that the developmental trajectory of this relationship remains “controllable, ” offering insights into human survival strategies in the early stages of the AI era.