Henry Selick’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s 2002 classic, “Coraline,” pairs whimsical characters and striking silhouettes with a darker story, but still grounded in warmth. Its carefully crafted details make for a memorable film. And, upon closer inspection, its plot echoes a civilization-wide extinction theory known as the comfort paradox. A theory that can also explain how reliance and dependence on AI can lead to these consequences.
Coraline struggles to adjust to her new life in a gloomy Oregon town. At the Pink Palace, where she lives, she discovers a tiny door leading to a near-perfect replica of her world. There, everything is better, thanks to the “Other Mother,” or Beldam, who seems able to shape reality around Coraline’s desires. (Think of AI’s ability to generate surreal hallucinations with modern technology.)
On Coraline’s third visit, Beldam offers her a life in this new world in exchange for sewing buttons over her eyes. (A technology was introduced to a population guaranteeing ease, but the trade off is to give up a previous world or purely human-generated creativity and tenacity.) Coraline refuses and tries to undo the choices that led her there.
The comfort paradox describes a cycle in which a drive for safety and convenience helps societies prosper, but also can erode resilience. As people become less able to tolerate hardship, societies grow more vulnerable. This may end in collapse, as populations lose the capacity to respond to problems or become so absorbed in comfort that their will to live gradually fades.
This loss of physical and psychological resilience and passion leads to systemic hibernation, and even rejection of new experiences and advancements. A population with no problems left to face or goals left to conquer remains stagnant.
So Coraline rejects Beldam’s offer and attempts to reset her previous decisions.
Coraline’s desire to find peace leads her to a solution that would allow her to experience her most outlandish fantasies in a near-symmetrical world of her own. The film clearly mimics the comfort paradox, except that Coraline breaks the pattern by choosing to detach from the Other World. But first, her search for peace leads her to a world where her fantasies can come true. Was breaking from the Other World the right choice? And is it ethically or morally wrong to surround ourselves with a kind of “other world?”
Despite a lack of studies, we can still make an educated guess about the decision Coraline could have made. In the Other World she would have full bodily autonomy, except for her eyes becoming buttons. Imaginative wonders would forever surround her, and anything she could wish for would be manufactured to her heart’s content.
Coraline clearly has compassion for her parents, so why would that change with her “other” parents? Looking past their physical differences, her other parents could provide levels of love unmatched to that of her real ones, along with fulfilling her needs for shelter, safety and survival.
In terms of evolution and bioengineering, Coraline should have chosen to stay in the Other World. So what drove her to stray from that decision? It was the mere thought of sewing her eyes shut that steered her away from a more optimized reality.
It was also clear that she yearned for “real” love. In humans there is a difference between a manufactured personality and a genuine one, but, seemingly, the line can be blurred.
Americans overwhelmingly prefer human-created products and creativity, as opposed to AI. Due to a push toward AI integration in everyday life, there are a terrifying number of people who are in favor of its increasing prevalence. Implementing highly advanced AI systems into routines is not only considered optimal by some, but as inevitable by most.
But the film shows the complete opposite in the most beautifully illustrated way. Near the end, Beldam and her facade completely crumble to dust as Coraline peels back the curtain of novelty and pleasure to reveal Beldam’s true reality and nature. At the film’s climax, she watches the Other World collapse into instability, mirroring the potential outcome of AI-dependent societies. Coraline embraces her real parents, real love.
Coraline choosing the real world parallels the eventual erosion of AI, which would become an unfathomable risk to the inner workings and infrastructure of such a dependent civilization.
Of course, singularly relying on the comfort paradox cannot 100% accurately depict how an AI-based civilization may play out. However, I believe that when you closely examine the film’s parallels, the themes fit together in a way that can help you form a personal stance on the possible role AI can play in humanity’s future.