In artistic portrayals with artificial humans, it can be observed that machine-humans are poetized, aestheticized and alienated. Cinematic and literary imaginings ascribe qualities of otherness to the technically reproduced human, e.g. by highlighting cultural differences. In addition, they often reflect on the existence of humanoid robots through references to art. This article explores the portrayal of the humanoid robot through art and the significance of its attribution of otherness, using as an example the film I’m Your Man (2021). The film deals with the optimization of humans and their capacity to love, raising the question of whether the ideal lies in a relationship with the stranger within oneself. The ethical questions surrounding the (non-)human posed by the film through a human-machine relationship are explored with reference to Freud’s theories of the unconscious and Julia Kristeva’s Strangers to Ourselves. Intercultural and psychoanalytic theories are drawn upon to examine the image of the (technically reproduced) human, its boundaries and the significance of art in envisioning the human of the future, and are presented for discussion as an interdisciplinary interpretive framework for the humanoid robot.