What are emotions and how do they shape our lives? For thousands of years people speculated on the deep connection between emotions and the arts. This debate has been developing for centuries among intellectuals, philosophers, and artists, wondering about the effective power of an artwork to stir emotionally and cognitively the viewer. In the last decade, the discussion has touched new domains in connection to the development of pervasive digital media and CGI imaginary. Can we develop empathic feelings for CGI characters, or for virtual assistants that are not real entities? This paper will address some of the key points related to these questions. The first part of this paper will be dedicated to a description of what emotions are according to the main current theories in the field. The second part will be focused on how emotions are related to the exploitation of artworks, with particular reference to the suspension of disbelief theory. The third part will consider the visual representation of AI in films, in order to analyze how emotional engagement with visual representations of AI in moving images can influence real-life interactions between users and AI.