Exploring AI, Emotions, and Justice
- Fliss Falconer
- Dec 26, 2025
- 6 min read
The Weight of What Cannot be Captured
13 September 2025
Fliss Falconer
Come on AI – show us what you can really do
Last night, I was challenged with adapting a poster without the original version to work with. I was layering graphics and modifying them, astounded by the 'move' and 'erase' features of my phone. It did take my phone, tablet and computer to make it work though. My own shortcomings, rather than the technology, made me feel as though the final product was 'gaffa taped' in places. It did make me think that I had lots of things available to help me, but it wasn't quite together enough, and I could have done a better job if I had used more of my own knowledge and skills rather than relying on AI.
It made me ask, come on AI - show us what you can really do.
What We Can Feel That Machines Can't
It was 3am and with September's stormy weather outside, it was dark, warm and cosy in bed, but I was awake. Otto, our nine-year-old cat, who usually takes the opportunity to attempt a claw-created nose-piercing on me at such times, was instead, warm, snuggly and purring intently. Everyone else was asleep. It was beautifully peaceful. I thought how much I would miss these moments when they are no longer here. How I missed Tori, and Buttons, the girls, Ozzie, Tate. The feel of fur. The scent of it. Raspy tongues and wet noses.
It's not everyone's cup of tea but if you love animals and invite them into your home, it comes with the territory.
I love it and I know how fleeting it is when you choose to share your life with pets. 'Memories of this Day' allow us to revisit fuzzy recollections and briefly revitalise them for us.
It got me thinking about how AI could really find a market for capturing so much more of this experience than photos and videos do. When our beloved pets are with us for such a short time, a way to catch more than what we see and hear of them - the multi-sensory experience that they give us - would be snapped up immediately.
At the moment, technology's limitations of digital memory mean we have sight and sound but we miss out on touch, scent, weight and emotion. It cannot feel or recreate the taste and smell of quayside meals on holiday. The electric air before a storm. The pulse of joy in a championship win. The trembling awe of holding a newborn. These are just ours, alive in our memories and our abilities to describe them.
AI is trying though - Designer already has mastered including shorter words in its creations, and Copilot's update last night said:
Here’s what’s happening under the hood:
🧠 Designer’s Current Language Capabilities
Short, punchy phrases like “Rain?” or “Sale!” are handled well—these are common in templates and easy to style.
Longer or more nuanced text often gets treated as decoration rather than message. Designer may not grasp tone, rhythm, or emotional intent.
Text placement and sizing can be inconsistent when the phrase isn’t templated—especially if it’s dialectical or playful.
🔧 What’s Improving Microsoft is actively working on:
Better semantic understanding of text prompts—so Designer can interpret why a phrase matters, not just how it looks.
Tone-aware styling—matching font, colour, and layout to the emotional or cultural context of the words.
Text hierarchy tools—to help users guide emphasis (e.g., making “Quiz” the focal point, not “Instead”).
So there is a long way to go.
Its early stages give a sense of oddity, disjointed and fractured finished products. For me, some AI efforts come with a sense of the macabre and possibly sinister overtones. Reanimating black and white photos with the likes of the 'alivemoment' app made me think back to teaching 'The Woman in Black' and my Gothic Studies of 'In a Glass Darkly', along with Corelli's 'Wormwood' (thank you, William Hughes), another novel in the annals of my mind that had a scene in the Paris morgue and everyone drinking Absinthe and downing their sorrows. Trying to keep alive what has gone.
With AI raising up and engulfing the whole of humanity, lots of fears of the unknown, of 'Frankenstein', 'Dracula' and '1984' with Big Brother always watching and the turmoil of not knowing what is reality, of 'Inception' may also subsume us... in many ways, we want to keep AI at bay and not allow it anywhere near our human emotions lest it rids us of the last vestiges of knowing what is real and what is fiction.
Some things are best kept to the imagination. Let us experience it in a cathartic but abstract way - through books, theatre, music, films and movies.
The Other Side of Sensation: Pain, Fear, and Injustice
That prickling of the skin when something isn't right. You stop breathing to hear if it was you or someone else. You tell yourself to keep your nerve. That you've read too many news stories, horror stories. That you were stupid to go out without a coat, a torch, a weapon.
The step on the path that wasn't yours. That pitch in your ears as the shadow shifts and they are too close. That first grab - fierce, strong, deadly. The stale odours and chemical covers as you're being held down. The weight of thumbs at your throat. Elbows in your ribs. Knees in your thighs.
You can describe it but what if something could record it. Prove it. Because sometimes our human experience is not proof enough. It is not considered reality.
One of the reasons I was awake at 3am, is because the night before, I had read an article that made me feel sick. The Hereford Voice article said :
A woman in her 50s was raped and falsely imprisoned in Leominster.
A man was arrested on suspicion of rape, false imprisonment, and administering a poisonous substance but was released on bail.
It made me ask: How can we still not believe survivors without the judgement of 12 peers? What does it mean to be disbelieved by default?
This is not just women. It is very important to say that everyone can be subjected to assault and abuse and not enough can always be done to protect or even to help heal afterwards. So much of it comes down to disbelief let alone the other environments that allow for physical, mental, cyber and neglect abuse. AI's developments to capture and provide witness to such atrocities could be a landmark progression into the future. It could capture and retell, be the unbiased witness and speak the truth rather than your truth or my truth.
Or will it? If it is human made? If it is flawed and fundamentally built on greed, corruption and maintaining the status quo? Will we hear it, see the facts before us, feel the weight it carries... and still look the other way?
Will it ever be able to understand grief, trauma and loss? Will it be able to comfort us and show where we may seek a comforting hug until the robotics revolution can provide that too? Will it cope with the swinging pendulum of shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing and acceptance. Or will it always remain a mirror and not a witness. Not a companion. Not real.
What? So what? Now what?
For now, we cannot have AI to more than capture what it sees and hears. So, for now, you've got to believe us. You must put your faith and trust in us. And you must use your own senses, intelligence, and moral code to do what is right. We need to provide the humane part of the humanity. Or we may as well have the only intelligence on this earth as artificial.
I have looked again for the updates on the articles; this is what has happened since:
As of September 2025, the investigation into the Leominster case has progressed with the arrest of a 50-year-old man on suspicion of rape, false imprisonment, and administering a poisonous or noxious substance with intent to injure. The incident occurred between Thursday 4 and Friday 5 September in a property on South Street, Leominster. The man has since been released on bail while enquiries continue. West Mercia Police have appealed for witnesses, particularly anyone who may have seen suspicious activity between 9am and 10am on Thursday. These updates were reported by Hereford Voice and Your Herefordshire, both of which have provided ongoing coverage and contact details for those willing to come forward.
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