Frankenstein Is Not Your AI Metaphor (At Least, Not Like That)

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When the first trailer for legendary Mexican director Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein dropped, the tagline—four words slammed across the screen in huge white letters—sent me scrambling for a Google doc: ONLY MONSTERS PLAY GOD.

As a writer who works in technology and also happens to have an extremely marketable degree in English literature, my immediate impulse was to reach for the AI take: Frankenstein, creation, hubris, founders, models—the Substack essay basically wrote itself.

Then I watched the movie, twice. Frankenstein absolutely has something to say about AI. Just not the thing I thought.

Here’s a quick recap for those of you who haven’t read the book or have, but it’s been a while since high-school English: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tells the story of an obsessive young academic, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac in the film) who, on a mission to conquer death and push human knowledge to its outermost limits, brings the creature (that’s a spectacular Jacob Elordi in the movie) to life. Fallout ensues.

Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a largely faithful adaptation of the 1818 novel, with a number of what I’d say are acceptable-to-excellent tweaks. But the more I think about it, the more I have an issue with its slogan.

“Only monsters play God” is a catchy tagline aimed at driving views. But there’s so much more to this book and this film than Disney-grade platitudes about “real monsterhood” can convey. Because the most interesting part is not the “it’s aliiiiive” moment in the lab (as much as that scene in the movie rips); it’s what happens after the eyes open, when the question becomes what you owe to what you’ve made, and what kind of monster you become when you walk away.

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Become a paid subscriber to Every to unlock this piece and learn about:

1. Why Guillermo del Toro despises AI—yet accidentally made the most layered metaphor for our moment with it
2. What Victor Frankenstein's disappointment with his creation reveals about why "AI doesn't work" for most people
3. Why the real story begins after the eyes open, not in the lab—and what that means for anyone building powerful systems