Ethics on the Silver Screen: A Cultural Comparison of Chinese and Western AI Film and Television Text

In recent years, the imagination of artificial intelligence on the screen has become a mirror reflecting social and cultural values. Western film and television works generally focus on how self-aware AI challenges human individual status and free will, with stories often revolving around boundaries, conflict, and control. In contrast, Chinese narratives tend to explore how AI is incorporated into existing networks of family and social relationships, emphasizing responsibility and integration. This paper selects representative Chinese and Western film and television texts to compare them from three aspects: AI role behavioral choices, linguistic expression, and role positioning, combined with audio-visual language analysis. The study finds that AI in Western stories mostly appears as a "challenger" seeking autonomy, with value choices favoring the individual; whereas AI in Chinese stories often serves as a "new member" integrating into the collective, with value reflected more in fulfilling family or social responsibilities. These two different screen imaginations correspond to the cultural mindsets of "prevention and boundary" and "integration and responsibility" respectively, indicating that the discussion of AI ethics needs to fully consider diverse cultural contexts to form a more inclusive consensus globally.