¿Las máquinas pueden sentir?: Un análisis narrativo de la inteligencia artificial en la película “The Wild Robot”

Abstract

In recent science fiction cinema, artificial intelligence has moved beyond its traditional role as threat or human instrument, emerging instead as an entity capable of sustaining conflict, forming bonds, and raising questions about identity and coexistence. This study analyzes the narrative and symbolic representation of AI in The Wild Robot (2024), directed by Chris Sanders, through a qualitative, analytical-interpretive approach based on narrative, semiotic, and audiovisual analysis of selected scenes, supported by observation matrices. The movie follows Roz, a robot who accidentally arrives on a wildlife island and must learn to navigate an environment beyond her original programming. Her transformation is not achieved through physical humanization, but through acts of care, responsibility, and emotional connection with Brightbill, a bond that turns a functional task into an experience that reshapes how she interprets the world. The findings show that the film does not attempt to prove literally that a machine can feel but rather constructs a narrative experience in which that possibility becomes believable. Roz conveys her inner life through gestures, silences, decisions, and acts of protection, offering a representation of AI defined by learning, memory, care, and sacrifice, without erasing her technological nature.