At the intersection of AI and film, generative tools are fundamentally changing our relationship with the moving image. This excerpt from my book, AI Cinematic Realism, dives into those shifts to help define the future of cinematic truth. 

---

If cinematic realism once rested on the indexical bond between image and world, then AI-generated imagery forces us to reconsider realism not as a property of the medium, but as a phenomenon of experience.

This is where philosophy becomes indispensable. It gives us the tools to ask not only what realism is, but how it is produced, perceived, and trusted when the world no longer anchors the image.

The Embodied Eye

Phenomenology has long provided a way to think about the moving image as an embodied experience. For Maurice Merleau-Ponty, perception is not passive reception but active engagement with the world through our bodies. The cinematic image, even when staged, resonates with us because it mimics and extends our perceptual engagement.

But what happens when the image no longer refers back to a captured reality?

An AI-generated street scene, for example, may never have existed—but it can still “feel” real in the flow of cinematic experience. Our bodies and minds respond to it as continuous with perception, even if the world it depicts is synthetic. We flinch at a synthetic crash; we soften at a synthetic smile.

In this way, AI realism underscores phenomenology’s core claim: that realism is as much about perception and embodiment as about ontological fidelity. The “realness” is not in the file’s metadata; it is in the viewer’s nervous system.

The Extended Mind and Generative Reality

Cognitive philosophers like Andy Clark and David Chalmers have argued that the mind extends into the world through tools, technologies, and representations. Cinema has always been part of this extension, shaping not only what we see but how we think and feel about seeing.

AI complicates this framework. When AI systems generate images, they are not merely extending human perception but reshaping it through algorithmic inference. The external scaffolding of thought is no longer simply representational (a photograph of something “out there”) but generative, producing realities that condition how we think about what is “out there” in the first place.

In this sense, AI realism demonstrates an intensified form of externalism: our mental and cultural lives are increasingly co-constructed with computational systems that generate, rather than simply mediate, the images we encounter.

Toward Posthuman Realism

If cinematic realism has long implied a human point of view—anchored in bodily presence, psychological interiority, or lived experience—AI-generated media invites us to reconsider that foundation. In an age of synthetic imagery, automated editing, and nonhuman authorship, realism becomes something that can be assembled without a subject. It can emerge from data, patterns, and inference—without requiring anyone to see, feel, or mean anything in the conventional sense.

This is the territory of posthuman realism—where narratives, aesthetics, and performances are shaped not around human consciousness, but by systems that simulate its outputs.

AI-generated characters can mimic affect, simulate dialogue, and evoke empathy without any interiority behind the performance. Voiceovers, gestures, even facial microexpressions can be generated convincingly by models trained on vast human datasets. But the question remains: whose realism is this?

It’s not simply that AI shifts the role of the creator—it shifts the structure of mediation itself. Stories are no longer told by someone so much as through systems. The human artist becomes one node in a wider network of models, prompts, datasets, and tools. This challenges long-standing assumptions about authorship, originality, and intention—central pillars in how we’ve historically evaluated both fiction and nonfiction realism.

In this light, AI Cinematic Realism is not just about how things look, but about what kinds of perspectives are being constructed—and who (or what) is doing the constructing. It asks us to reconsider whether realism must always be tied to a human subject, or whether it can also emerge from the logic of systems, simulations, and synthetic agency.

Rather than signaling the end of realism, posthuman realism may represent a new chapter: one where the “real” is produced collaboratively—across humans, machines, and platforms—and where the lines between performance, perception, and production continue to blur.

---

If these ideas resonate with you, the full manifesto explores the intersection of film theory, practice, and ethics in greater detail. 

You can access the AI Cinematic Realism book on Amazon.