The 1990s marked a peculiar era globally, characterized by the burgeoning influence of the internet, which began infiltrating homes across the globe. This decade also witnessed the rise of Eastern anime and manga as staples on Western television screens, largely due to Funimation’s efforts. In the midst of this cultural shift, the summer of 1998 saw the debut of Serial Experiments Lain, an anime that, unbeknownst to viewers at the time, would serve as an eerily accurate prediction of the future.

Artificial Intelligence, once a fixture of sci-fi anime and films, has consistently captivated the imagination. The questions surrounding the potential creation of an artificial entity—its nature and humanity’s treatment of it—have long intrigued audiences. As the internet continues to advance, humanity finds itself evolving in tandem, with AI becoming an increasingly tangible and, for some, unsettling facet of this progress. Nearly three decades ago, Lain foresaw these developments, albeit through a lens as bewildering and surreal as the world we inhabit today.

During the nascent stages of home internet, it posed a seductive yet perilous allure for many, offering a solution to a pervasive sense of isolation: the promise of companionship. With a cacophony of odd beeps and screeches during connection, individuals could access the internet and engage in conversations with others worldwide. For the bored, the lonely, and the inquisitive, the internet provided a platform to connect with like-minded individuals, fostering communities around niche interests and quickly becoming addictive.

The Internet Has Become The Wired from Serial Experiments Lain

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When home internet was still in its infancy, it was a dangerous trap for a lot of people because it offered something many felt like they were missing: companionship. With a few strange beeps and boops amid the horrifying screech of connection, everyday people could log into the internet and begin chatting with other people all over the world. The bored, the lonely and the curious could easily find others who shared their more obscure interests, and it was addictive.

For Lain, she doesn’t seem all that interested in The Wired at first. It distracts her parents and sister, making her feel alone even in their company. When her friends start talking about a strange email they all got from a classmate who committed suicide, it stirs her interest and launches her into a bizarre search for a truth she didn’t even realize she was looking for.

At that time, no one could have imagined the world we live in today would feature an entire generation raised by cell phone and tablet screens. It’s not uncommon to feel like Lain in 2025. Amid a sea of faces glued to screens as they move through the world as if completely unaware of the actual people sitting right beside them, it’s a lonely world. Friendships with people who will never meet in person are forged all the time across the tangled web of the internet, and more people than ever work remote for companies they will likely never set foot in to meet their actual boss.

Everyone is connected. All the time. Everywhere they go, parents have a hard line to their kids, and vice-versa, thanks to technological evolution. It sounds almost like some kind of utopian future dream come to life, but in reality, it’s a very lonely existence. Couple that with the recent normalization of AI, and it’s a disastrous, reality-distorting cocktail that feels as if it came straight out of a dystopian anime plot.

Lain Does More Than Cross the Boundary Between Fantasy and Reality

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Humanity currently exists in a state forced to question the reality of everything presented. Artificial Intelligence is everywhere, from the short snippets of information provided before human-created content in search engines to the playful companions people spend time chatting with in AI-populated apps. As more people disappear down the rabbit hole of regular AI interactions, it isn’t difficult to lose touch with reality. Every AI chat app on the market comes with a warning reminder that participants are not engaging with a real person.

With that in mind, new AI apps are popping up all the time, encouraging the lonely to chat with an AI girlfriend or boyfriend whenever they need someone to talk to. They claim that the love and attention a person is craving can be found in Artificial Intelligence, but if AI isn’t a real person, how can that connection fill the void? Continued advances in technology, instead of recognizing the massive gap in human interaction and connection, search for more ways to isolate individual users by connecting them to artificial intelligence.

At this rate, people will never have to interact with each other again, but as Serial Experiments Lain demonstrates, her false connection through The Wired doesn’t fill the void she feels inside herself. Her loneliness drives her to keep looking, even as Lain begins to question the very nature of reality itself and allows herself to become a part of The Wired. Humanity may not have found a way to directly upload individual consciousness yet, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t looking.

It’s an incredibly dense but profound experience for anime viewers, just as it is for Lain. In trying to find connection, she only further isolates herself. The different aspects of personality she allows herself to explore through her online presence further fracture her sense of self, contributing to a loss of identity and an even deeper sense of loneliness.

Serial Experiments Lain Is A Cautionary Tale

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For some, it may sound like a conspiracy theorist’s dream, breaking down an anime series in such great detail, but in the end, it’s more than that. Humanity has always feared advancement and change, but the rapid evolution of technology over the last 40 years is something to be alarmed about. Most people don’t actually believe AI will overthrow humanity and take control of the world, but anime and other media do pose very realistic scenarios that transcend the science fictional aspect bordering on science fact.

Computers, which once took up entire rooms in buildings, are now small enough to take video calls on and stow away in pockets. Artificial Intelligence was the terrifying stuff of apocalyptic anime and movies. Today people forge bonds with or seek advice from beings that don’t possess the emotional capacity to actually feel or relate on a human level. As people become more reliant on AI, the isolating nature of technology will only continue to grow. Much like Lain Iwakura, an already fractured society will no longer understand what it means to be human.