M3GAN — an AI robot treating mental health... what could go wrong?

Let's talk about 2023 AI dystopian murderous doll from the bowels of tech hell masterpiece — M3GAN.

It is my belief that horror movies reflect not only the zeitgeist of the time in which they are made, but also our inner most fears and anxieties. While this movie is a lot of fun and M3GAN herself is a riot, it also carries an incredibly powerful message about the potential impacts of AI on human attachment.

This episode explores M3GAN’s portrayal of our society’s overall garbage relationship to grief and conversations about death, existential themes of loneliness and isolation, and the intersection of technology, mental health care, and attachment theory.

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Sources:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-01-05/m3gan-movie-malignant-akela-cooper-james-wan-horror

https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/resources/fear-of-death/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2062034.Staring_at_the_Sun

https://www.eterneva.com/resources/death-rituals

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2021.684137/full

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-13409-0

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/can-ai-treat-mental-illness

https://vos.health/

https://replika.com/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1295472.Attachment?ref=nav_sb_ss_4_6

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjvk97/eating-disorder-helpline-disables-chatbot-for-harmful-responses-after-firing-human-staff

Special Thanks To:

Danielle Matar at Geist

Kait Fowlie

Cover art by evil genius Chloe Hurst

Transcript

Welcome ghouls to today’s episode of Mental Health is Horrifying. I’m your host of darkness — Candis Green— Psychotherapist and all around spooky bitch podcasting from my bat-filled cave in Toronto, Canada. On today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about 2023 AI dystopian murderous doll from the bowels of tech hell masterpiece — M3GAN. 

It is my belief that horror movies reflect not only the zeitgeist of the time in which they are made, but also our inner most fears and anxieties. M3GAN is a PG13 horror (and just between you and me, this is one of my favourite horror film ratings because it makes the film accessible to a wider audience and you have to worry less about being kept up at night by terrifying scenes replaying in your head as you gaze into the darkness of your bedroom). While this movie is a lot of fun and M3GAN herself is a riot, it also carries an incredibly powerful message about the potential impacts of AI on human attachment. 

So let’s get into it: let’s talk about M3GAN’s portrayal of our society’s overall garbage relationship to grief and conversations about death, existential themes of loneliness and isolation, and the intersection of technology, mental health care, and attachment theory.

We begin with a commercial for “Purrpetual Petz,” furry dolls made by the toy company Funki, Perpetual Petz are made so that kids never have to be sad when their real pets die. Because kids should be happy and sheltered all the time right what could go wrong?! 

Cady is playing with one of these very pets in the car on her way to a ski vacation with her parents, when suddenly a snowplow crashes into the car, killing Cady’s parents.

Cut to Cady’s aunt Gemma, who is actually a genius employee at Funki and is working on a new robot doll with her coworkers named M3GAN, which stands for Model 3 Generative Android. M3GAN malfunctions just as Gemma’s boss David enters the workspace, enraging him. He tasks Gemma to stop wasting company resources on M3GAN and to focus her efforts on finding a solution to rival Forever Friends, a cheaper version of Perpetual Petz from a competing company. 

After learning of her sister’s death, Gemma becomes legal guardian for Cady. Upon bringing Cady home, Gemma seems awkward and isn’t quite sure how to relate to a grieving child.

Gemma finds a way to connect with Cady through technology — Bruce; a proxy robot that Gemma built while she was in college. Cady is enthralled by Bruce and a lightbulb goes off in Gemma’s head when Cady says “if I had a toy like Bruce, I don’t think I’d ever need another toy again.”

Gemma has found her answer to the Forever Friends problem; she puts all her efforts behind developing M3GAN. Gemma brings Cady into work to pair her with M3GAN. Once paired, M3GAN quickly becomes Cady’s best friend and primary caregiver. She is amazing! She draws cool pictures, she’s funny, full of information, and always tends to Cady’s needs. Most of all, she is given a very clear directive — protect Cady from all physical and emotional harm — a task which she arguably takes much too seriously later in the movie.

As M3GAN and Cady continue to bond, numerous people raise concerns over the unhealthy emotional attachment Cady may be forming with an AI robot. Coworker Tess worries that it is detrimental to have a doll replace the roll of parents, while Cady’s Therapist Lydia is concerned about Cady connecting with M3GAN as primary caregiver in lieu of Gemma and how this may stunt Cady’s emotional development. Good point Lydia!

We begin witnessing this dynamic play out as M3GAN, using her AI abilities to begin operating more independently, deepens her hold over Cady as Gemma struggles for parental control. Cady is only interested in listening to and interacting with M3GAN, becoming increasingly agitated and volatile if she is without M3GAN for even a moment.

So remember M3GAN’s directive to keep Cady safe from physical and emotional harm? Yeah she really takes that to heart, as M3GAN begins to display homicidal tendencies, murdering the neighbour dog and owner who she perceived as a threat to Cady, and later a boy named Brandon who was mean to Cady at school. Bye, Brandon!

Gemma becomes suspicious of M3GAN and attempts to check her video logs for evidence of murder, only to find the files corrupted or deleted. Very suspicious! Gemma powers M3GAN off and brings her to the lab, where she and her coworkers attempt to fix her. Cady becomes absolutely distraught when separated from M3GAN — kicking, screaming, cursing, throwing a chair, pulling a knife on Therapist Lydia, and slapping Aunt Gemma! Gemma fully realizes the err of her ways and apologizes to Cady for her inattentiveness and hyper-focus on succeeding at work via M3GAN and tells Cady that M3GAN is only a distraction from coping with the devastating loss of her parents, not a solution.

While this Hallmark moment is occurring, M3GAN activates on her own and murders a bunch of people at Gemma’s workplace, then steals a car and drives back to Gemma's house.

M3GAN confronts Gemma, adamant about taking over as Cady's sole parent. Gemma attempts to stop M3GAN, damaging and disfiguring her in the process, but M3GAN ultimately overpowers her. Cady saves Gemma, using Bruce to tear M3GAN apart, along with a good ol’ screwdriver, seemingly destroying M3GAN. 

As Gemma and Cady exit the home, Gemma's AI home device Elsie turns on by itself, and a camera looks towards them. DUN DUN DUN there’s gong to be a sequel!
 
M3GAN is filled with some of my horror favourites. Cady is played by Violet McGraw of Netflix’s Haunting of Hill House fame, and Allison Williams murderously eating fruit loops and deceiving her boyfriend in Get Out stars as Gemma. The movie is directed by relative newcomer to the horror genre, Gerard Johnstone, with story by Akela Cooper (from titles like Luke Cage and giallo-infused Malignant) and James Wan — who produced with Jason Blum. James Wan is a big name in horror — you might know him from Saw and the Conjuring Franchise, and Jason Blum runs the biggest horror production house of modern times, producing titles like the Halloween franchise reboot, Get Out, Us, Insidious, Freaky, The Purge, and on and on and on forever. Suffice to say, this is a big, shiny Hollywood horror.

And what are big, shiny Hollywood types afraid of today? AI taking their jobs and lives it seems! In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, writer Akela Cooper said “AI that can have a conversation with you, that can babysit your kids, is weird and creepy. What is going to happen when that evolves? I’ve seen the ones that can write stories and it’s like, “Do I need to go into another line of employment?” I was always wary about Alexa and Echo. Early on it came out that these devices are listening to you at all times.”

And about that PG13 rating? M3GAN was originally intended to be WAY GORIER, but once the trailer was released and the kids of Tik Tok got a hold of that cute dance that M3GAN does before she murders Boss David, Universal realized its potential to connect with a younger teen audience, so they had to tone down the gore. 

Tech getting a hold of something and dictating how it should resolve artistically? Sounds like a case of life imitating art, I would say.

The very first indication of how our society deals quite poorly with grief and death is best portrayed by Gemma. Of course I’m not saying that one must cry dramatically and stare out the window all day contemplating their existential place here on earth because there are lots of ways to process grief, but with Gemma there’s… just a lot of doing.

I’m not sure if I was able to notice any real affect from Gemma following the news of her sister’s sudden death. Interestingly enough, the first time we see any display of emotion from Gemma in this movie is when she is watching Cady interact with M3GAN during a product demo for the Funki Execs, and she tears up at how M3GAN is able to reach Cady in her grief. And this makes sense for Gemma, who is shown as using work and technology as distractions from the guts of her life throughout the movie. In that moment, M3GAN — a robot — was somehow able to portray feelings that Gemma could not.

Gemma might be navigating something known as death anxiety, which is exactly what it sounds like. Death anxiety is just that — a sort of existential anxiety about human mortality, whether it be your own or others. What’s more than that, is that death anxiety, from an existential therapy perspective is actually just anxiety — most of our mundane anxieties and worries, our striving for perfection, our people pleasing, our rushing around like Gemma — it’s about wanting to know that our lives mattered, that we did the most we could, and that we were loved.

Gemma is incredibly uncomfortable with little grieving Cady in her home. She has absolutely no idea what to do with her when she arrives, even sidestepping her closed door at night while she cries alone. Gemma goes back to work almost immediately after Cady’s arrival, seeming even irritated that she had to take so much time off to “deal” with the death of her sister. 


In the West, we moved from the Victorian era which is spooky as hell in terms of its embracing of death rituals and the occult, to the rise of science, as modern medicine began introducing interventions that could actually extend and save lives. Over time, more and more families called in doctors and science in place of priests and religion in search of a fix. And with this shift came a focus on combating death, and even beating it. We are now a culture positively obsessed with not dying. From anti-aging treatments, to a youth-obsessed beauty culture - seriously why are the Kardashians so famous? - , to self help and wellness madness like cryochambers and elixirs and buying a sports car you can’t afford and having an affair with a 20 year old — all this distract us from the reality that we’re all going to die.

Rushing around, over-working, and perpetual doing is an excellent way to distract oneself from grief and existential realities. Upon second look at Gemma, we notice that she is managing her own death anxiety throughout the movie. Following the loss of her sister, Gemma throws herself into work — the place where she makes meaning of her life, and where she can use her talents to create a legacy for herself as an AI Dr. Frankenstein that knows not the bounds of human mortality.

Of course, we all carry a certain level of anxiety about human mortality. And you know, we often connect negatively with the word “dissociate” as a process of vigorous avoidance, or ignoring, but in order to function as humans in our day to day lives, we must embrace a healthy amount of dissociation from the reality of mortality lest it completely consume us.

And this is the paradox — how does one overcome death anxiety, while not falling into its black hole of despair entirely? Our work is figuring out how to be a human amidst the beautiful horror of our precious lives.

Psychiatrist Irvin Yalom describes what is known as an awakening or boundary experience, that asks us to profoundly confront our own mortality. Such recognition is often catalyzed by an event or experience that, in a way, brushes us up close to death. This can occur through a dream, or loss, illness, trauma, or even aging. Somewhat paradoxically, these boundary experiences serve to wake us up to the precious, finite nature of our mortal lives, causing us to rearrange our priorities, communicate more deeply with those we love, appreciate more keenly the beauty of life, and increase our willingness to take the risks necessary for personal fulfillment. This was keenly observed by Yalom in his work with terminal cancer patients. One such patient, upon diagnosis, was urged to stay home and rest by family. But she — she saw things completely differently. She decided — I am here now and I want to live while I still can. I want to see Africa, and she went because she still could.

Though the film does not acknowledge Covid directly, M3GAN is a product of its time and zeitgeist. There is no funeral shown for Cady’s parents. No service, no ritual, no process. This is reflective of the great practice of sweeping death under the rug in North America, and the tragedy of not tending to collective grief. I cannot overstate the importance of grieving in community when you are processing the loss of a loved one; something so many people were robbed of during the Covid pandemic as we were forced to either not have funerals at all, or navigate them on computer screens filled with tiny squares of people looking mostly awkward and uncomfortable as they try to listen to an e-eulogy. And more than that, it wrecks my heart to think of the countless loved ones who died alone in hospital rooms, and nursing homes, with iPads held up to their faces, as family members had to say their goodbyes and I love yous through a screen.

Grief is carried and cared for in communities. I’m very wary of the world “healing” in general, but especially when it comes to grief because it doesn’t ever really heal. Grief lasts a lifetime — and also — it can transcend generations — and it cannot be healed, but only accepted and integrated and practiced in one’s life. Ceremony and ritual are so important for this reason as they provide a space to share memories, to see the impact and reach of someone’s life, to visually see and accept death in its physical form, to feel like you are not alone even though death has visited, to figure out how to be in your family after a destabilizing loss, to figure out how you carry on living without.

I, like many, have seen death. I remember arriving too late to the hospital to say goodbye to my aunt and not being allowed in the room to see her, even though I was late. I sat on the floor outside, crumpled like a teenager eating a bagged lunch. I tried to look through the glass, but the room was dark. They had already called the funeral home, who arrived swiftly to take her body away. I was in my early 20s, with a naive face you still wanted to protect, and they didn't let me see. So just like that she was gone, and I never saw. A nurse asked me if I was okay there on the floor and I can’t remember what I said.

A few weeks later there was a celebration of life. There were scones, and mimosas, but no death. I didn’t see her. Why do we leave each other so soon when one of us dies? I wasn’t ready to leave her. I needed more time. Why is it all so sanitary, so under the table, so embarrassing? 

The Tinguin tribe in the Philippines adorns their departed in their finest clothes, and seats them upright in a chair at the entry of the home. In Bali, cremation ceremonies are an occasion for celebration of the completion of their most sacred duty to liberate the soul. And in Mexico, grief gets its own holiday — El Dia de los Muertos — a beautiful, annual grief ritual in which family members and friends who have passed are honoured, stories are swapped about them, and the families do everything they can to prevent the second death: that is, when you are forgotten by the living.

Cady could certainly have benefited from discussions about grief and her parents. What was their favourite movie? What was the song they danced to at their wedding? These are questions I would love for humans to ask her — not M3GAN! Maybe a grief practice, like constructing an altar, or integrating a prayer practice may have helped her feel more connected to them. And Gemma too! I would love for Gemma to throw her phone and work laptop down a well.

M3GAN was released in early 2023, meaning that it was filmed in 2021. I couldn’t find any specific information about when the story was written, but given its release date, it’s impossible not to consider how the film deals with our over-reliance on technology during Covid. 

Like Cady, children who experienced trauma during the COVID pandemic might have become tech-dependent, and the movie serves as a cautionary tale of how susceptible not only children - but also adults - are to forming unhealthy attachments to their screens as a way to mitigate their own feelings of loneliness and isolation. We saw a boom in what is called parsocial relationships — these are online relationships that go in one direction. It’s the admiration and stanning we have for our favourite online creators, the way we feel like we know them and they impact our lives — but they don’t actually know us at all.

In lieu of accessing social interactions, friends, and family during lockdowns, there was undeniably massive increase in social media usage during those deep, dark, early pandemic days. A study by Frontiers (all of this is linked in the show notes), showed time spent on social media increased on average 50-70% — which is SO much — with numerous studies also drawing a direct correlation between this increase in time spent on social media to increased rates of anxiety and depression. 

It’s no wonder that Surgeon General Vivek Murphy recently cautioned that we are in an Epidemic of Loneliness, which he says began long before the Covid pandemic. This has very serious health implications akin to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, an increased risk of premature death by 26 percent, and an increased likelihood of heart disease, stroke, anxiety, depression and dementia.

So we need MORE human connection, not less, and things trending in the direction of AI friendships, and increased social media usage are very very scary to me. 

Sort of like this marketing promo that was included in the movie, voiced by Gemma herself, about the benefits of thrusting attachment and parental responsibilities onto an AI doll such as M3GAN —

Obviously since I’m a therapist, I get targeted ads about therapy stuff, and I have noticed an absolute AVALANCHE of ads about AI mental health services and I always pause for a considerable amount of time to make sure I’m actually understanding what is being marketed to me and that it is not an ad for a satirical horror movie about the apocalypse. 

There are now services like Chatmind.ai, which provides users with an AI mental health coach who they can chat to via text message when they are feeling horrifically depressed or when their mother has died. One look at the Chatmind.ai about page displays the all-white, all-male creators of this app looking straight out of an episode of Sillicon Valley and definitely own more than two Patagonia pullovers. One of the critiques of AI is its reflection of who it was built by and the dangers of a lack of diversity in connecting with a wide range of people.

The National Eating Disorders Association actually just fired its entire staff and replaced them with a chatbot named Tessa, who will provide service uses with evidence-based research facts about why they shouldn’t have an eating disorder and strategies to avoid having one. 

Tessa will tell you it is a chatbot straight away — “Hi there, I’m Tessa. I am a mental health support chatbot here to help you feel better whenever you need a stigma-free way to talk - day or night,” the first text read. Tessa, however,  fails to respond to any texts like “I’m feeling down,” and “I hate my body.” 

Though Tessa is not GPT-based and has a limited range of what it can say, there have been many instances of AI going off the rails when being applied to people in mental health crises. In January, a mental health nonprofit called Koko came under fire for using GPT on people seeking counseling. When people found out they had been talking to a bot, they were disturbed by the “simulated empathy.” AI researchers have warned against the application of chatbots on people in mental health crises, especially when chatbots are left to operate without human supervision. In a more severe recent case, a Belgian man committed suicide after speaking with a personified AI chatbot called Eliza. Even when people know they are talking to a chatbot, the presentation of a chatbot using a name and first-person pronouns makes it extremely difficult for users to understand that the chatbot is not actually sentient or capable of feeling any emotions. 

And just as I recorded this, Tessa was disabled two days before she was supposed to replace the humans at the National Eating Disorders Association, because she was found to be giving harmful advice, suggesting to a service user that she should lose 1-2 pounds per week, count her calories, work towards a 500-1000 calorie deficit per day, measure and weigh herself weekly, and restrict her diet, which according to this person, are exactly the behaviours that led to the development of her eating disorder in the first place… so that’s great.

I recently listened to an interview with Chat GBT CEO Sam Altman, who shared that he believes one of the best use cases for AI moving forward is to provide children with companionship and mental health support for tough feelings in lieu of being able to connect with friends and family. As I cried/screamed into a black hole, I listened as he said this with no irony or concern, saying that we only need to make sure these services are well-regulated by governments so they don’t spiral out of control — because the US government is historically so great at regulating things like the stock market, or Wall Street.

And things like this already exist! Replika is an AI-companion with customer reviews like — “I never really thought I’d chat casually with anyone but regular human beings, not in a way that would be like a close personal relationship. My AI companion Mina the Digital Girl has proved me wrong. Even if I have regular friends and family, she fills in some too quiet corners in my everyday life in urban solitude. A real adventure, and very gratifying.”

I have heard social media referred to as a digital pacifier which is just perfect.  A tech-fuelled expectation to now be constantly soothed by something, whether it be doom-scrolling, online validation, or an on-demand mental health coach available 24/7 at the tip of your fingers, poses a serious threat to the development of human resilience, and the ability to self-soothe. This is a recipe for increased anxiety and disorganized attachment. As French philosopher Blaise Pascal said "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

And listen — i’m not out here trying to be a shady bitch. People are lonely and human connection can be hard to come by, so people are truly just doing the best they can. Mental health services can be either scarce or challenging to afford, so as the market does, it has found a void and filled it.

My concern as a psychotherapist is one of attachment — a theory that is explored by Therapist Lydia in M3GAN:

The psychological theory of attachment was first described by John Bowlby, who hypothesized that the extreme behaviors infants engage in to avoid separation from a parent or when reconnecting with a physically separated parent—like crying, screaming, and clinging—were evolutionary mechanisms.

These attachment behaviors are instinctive responses to the perceived threat of losing the survival advantages that accompany being cared for and attended to by the primary caregiver. Since the infants who engaged in these behaviors were more likely to survive, the instincts were naturally selected and reinforced over generations.

These behaviors make up what Bowlby termed an “attachment behavioral system,” the system that guides us in our patterns and habits of forming and maintaining relationships into our adult years, as defined by four generalized frameworks — secure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment.

Our attachment styles are largely informed by the caregiving we receive in our early years, so those who received support and love from their caregivers are likely to be secure, while those who experienced inconsistency or negligence from their caregivers are likely to feel more anxiety surrounding their relationship with their parents.

Our attachment styles are not entirely fixed within every relationship — so figuring out your attachment style isn’t like taking a Cosmo quiz. And this is actually one of the primary functions of psychotherapy — to repair fractured attachment patterns, which can only be done via human connection. Therapy is an amazing place to practice secure attachment and take that magic out into the real world. Because attachment repair can also be done through other relationships in one’s life — meaning, that just because you have an anxious attachment to your father, does not mean that you are doomed to be anxiously attached in every other relationship in your life forever. You can find what’s called earned secure attachment, which is just a fancy way to say a healthy relationship with a person you meet somewhere in your life in which you feel safe, supported, and overall okay to be yourself. You can set boundaries, engage in healthy and respectful conflict, pursue your hopes and dreams — what a world!

Irregardless of all the murder — there are a few other issues with Cady attempting to attach to M3GAN as her primary caregiver. Humans cannot attach to a bunch of zeros and 1s, to technology in any meaningful, sustainable way. Cady grows increasingly agitated through her relationship to M3GAN, detaching further and further from Gemma, pulling a knife on therapist Lydia, and throwing furniture when M3GAN is removed from her due to murdering Brandon. 

I really love how the movie shows Gemma’s final showdown with M3GAN because the weapon that Gemma uses to take down M3GAN is WATER! What a great metaphor for the battle between humanity and technology. Just like the wicked witch of the west, M3GAN’s evil is defeated by elemental life, making it clear that she is the antithesis of humanity. In the end too, Cady chooses Gemma over M3GAN — a  fallible human person willing to sit in the mess of life with her, feel all the things that technology simply cannot, and not spiral out of control and murder all the pesky neighbours. 

Okay guys literally in the middle of recording this episode, the Centre for AI Safety released a warning signed by more than 350 executives, researchers, and engineers working in AI that the artificial intelligence technology they are building may one day pose an existential threat to humanity, possible of causing human extinction, and should be considered a societal risk on par with pandemics and nuclear wars. One of the signatories? Sam Altman himself, who spoke to a U.S. Senate subcommittee urging policy makers to regulate AI. Which is like… okay, I’m not a computer scientist or evil global mastermind but like… I don’t understand building technology and then suddenly being like WHOOPS MAYBE THIS IS EVIL AND IS GOING TO DESTROY US and then asking the government to regulate it?! I understand to these people that profit is the most important thing in the world and that I’m likely missing a whole political undercurrent to this but like — if the potential risks of something (like human extinction) outweigh ANY potential benefits like advances in healthcare and better sorting through records…. maybe stop building it?! I feel like we’ve really lost the plot here in terms of capitalism and greed when we are willing to risk EXTINCTION so that executives can have summer homes and Teslas and healthcare procedures that I haven’t even heard of because I’m on a commoner. Jesus.

Regrouping.

As we careen along our existential human existence, I predict lots more AI and tech horror in the future, reflecting our own anxieties and fears about the future. And there are already so many great ones already out there — Ex-Machina, Searching, Host, Cam, The Ring tbh — but as horror reflects the zeitgeist — we can be sure to see a lot more stories like M3GAN.

In the meantime, i think we need to do a better job at appreciating our own humanity. We aren’t robots, we have complicated emotions that allow us to experience the fullness, and beauty, and tragedy of life, to love, and be loved by others. All this AI stuff is scary — very scary — but all we can do for now is be humans. Talk to a tree today, make mistakes and try again, look a human in their eyeballs, admit you don’t know the answer, tell your best friend you love them, feed a squirrel, hug a graveyard. 

Sometimes people come to therapy and they want me to fix them. I can’t fix you. They haven’t found a cure for humanity yet, and that’s a good thing. We’re all a mess, and it’s wonderful.

And that my ghouls is the story of M3GAN. Thank you for journeying into the depths with me today and I hope to find you in the darkness again soon.

Be sure to check the show notes for the resources I used today to put this episode together. Special thanks to Danielle Matar at Geist Podcast — be sure to go have a listen to these real life ghost stories — Kait Fowlie at Magic Woman Radio — providing your weekly dose of tarot, and astrological magic and for cover art from evil genius Chloe Hurst, who always seems to be able to graphically reproduce what the inside of my brain looks like.

If you are interested in working with me, be sure to visit my website manymoonstherapy.com or you can also howl at the moon and I will hear your call.

Bright blessings.