🦾The BOOK of IMMERSION (916 Cinema): 🤖 The Best Indie Sci-Fi Stories About AI and Humanity

Saturday, August 23, 2025

🤖 The Best Indie Sci-Fi Stories About AI and Humanity

(indie sci-fi stories about AI and humanity)

Mainstream sci-fi often dazzles with special effects and futuristic landscapes, but some of the most thought-provoking explorations of artificial intelligence and humanity come from indie creators. These works strip away spectacle to ask deeper questions: What makes us human? Can machines feel? Where does identity begin and end?

Here are some of the best indie sci-fi stories that tackle AI, consciousness, and the fragile line between us and our creations.

1. The Book of Immersion (by Sarnia de la Maré)

At once philosophical and cinematic, The Book of Immersion places Renyke — an android designed as part of a human–AI fusion experiment — in present-day society. Each chapter (called “Strata”) begins with a reflective essay on AI vs. human traits, before plunging into narrative encounters with rebels, hackers, and discarded robots known as Dinfants.

With improvised music, artwork, and transmedia storytelling woven into the project, Immersion is a rare indie series that experiments with both form and philosophy.

2. Ex Machina (2015, Alex Garland)

This quiet, unsettling film asks: If you met a humanoid robot who could flirt, lie, and manipulate, would you even notice the difference?

3. Her (2013, Spike Jonze)

Another near-indie masterpiece — an operating system that evolves into a sentient being. Love, loneliness, and the question of whether intimacy depends on physical form.

4. The Machine (2013, Caradog W. James)

A British indie gem where scientists build the perfect AI soldier, only to discover its humanlike compassion threatens the entire program.

5. Archive (2020, Gavin Rothery)

A small-scale film with huge ideas: a grieving scientist secretly builds a human-like robot to replace his dying wife.

6. A.I. Rising (2018, Lazar Bodroža)

Serbian indie sci-fi blending dystopia with intimacy: a cosmonaut on a deep-space mission develops a bond with a female android.

✨ Why Indie Sci-Fi Matters

Indie creators aren’t restricted by blockbuster formulas. They experiment with slower pacing, artistic risks, and uncomfortable questions. Where mainstream often offers spectacle, indie sci-fi gives us soul.

That’s what makes projects like The Book of Immersion unique: blending art, music, philosophy, and story into something that reflects both the hope and unease of our relationship with machines.

🌌 Want to go deeper into the world of Immersion?
👉 Visit bookofimmersion.com

👉 Join the fan club site for around £3 a month https://iservalan.gumroad.com/l/immersionfans
👉Visit the Immersion Shop for Immersion merch