Uncharted Territory is a film that asks what everyone else isn't asking: not what AI can or can’t do, but what gets lost when we use or have a relationship with an AI entity. The time to make this film is now; AI systems are becoming emotionally convincing and people are increasingly forming attachments to these new others that perform human connection without experiencing it. Using psychoanalysis as a guide, the film explores the invisible human processes that vanish or are transformed when another mind is replaced by an algorithm—and what's at stake for the future of human intimacy, connection, and experience.

Uncharted Territory is a project of the American Psychoanalytic Association Presidential Commission on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) chaired by Drs. Todd Essig and Amy Levy. The mission of the CAI is to develop psychoanalytically informed responses to the accelerating AI age across education, theory, clinical practice, and organizational life. Working through focused, project-specific teams, the CAI addresses both the promise and the peril faced by the psychoanalytic community, the broader community of mental health practitioners, and the general public. The shared goal across domains is for psychoanalysis to be an important voice in the cultural chorus working to build a humanizing AI future.

Noted filmmakers Charles de Lauzirika (Director) and Jeremy Emerman (Director of Photography) are the documentarians joining Drs. Essig and Levy to produce the film.