Artificial Intelligence: A.I.

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Theatrical Poster
Theatrical Poster

Contents

[edit] BACKGROUND

Released in 2001, Artificial Intelligence: A.I., was co-produced, written, and directed by Steven Spielberg. It is also notable for being the last project that famed filmmaker Stanley Kubrick worked on. Kubrick died before the film began shooting.

The film was inspired by science fiction writer Brian Aldiss’ short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” (published in 1969). First published in Harper's Bazaar in 1969 and later anthologized, “Super-Toys” is the story of humanity in an age of intelligent machines and focuses on a robot child “David” and his companion robot toy “Teddy”. (For full text version of the story visit: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.01/ffsupertoys_pr.html)

[edit] PLOT

The story takes place in unspecified date in the future. Global warming has led to an ecological disaster resulting in a drastic reduction of the human population and rising sea levels. Human efforts to maintain civilization have lead to the creation of android artificial intelligence. The culmination of said efforts is the creation of “David” (played in the film by Haley Joel Osment), an android -- or "mecha" -- programmed with the ability to love. Cybertronics, the company that created David, test their creation via the Swinton family – Henry Swinton is an employee of the company and his son is dying of a rare illness (while waiting on a cure, the Swinton family have placed their son in a state of suspended animation). The marriage is strained, but Henry agrees to bring David home to his wife Monica. Although she is initially frightened, she eventually warms to David after activating his imprinting protocol, which irreversibly causes David to feel “love” for her. as a child loves a parent. As he continues to live with the Swintons, David is befriended by “Teddy” - a mecha (robot) toy – who takes on the responsibility of David's well being. When the Swinton’s son is eventually cured of his illness and returns home, a predictable “sibling” rivalry develops. David is easily manipulated by his “brother”, and when this results in a near-drowning of the Swinton’s “real” son, Henry decides it is time to return David to his manufacturer.

Rather than turning David over to be destroyed, Monica releases him and Teddy into the forest to live as unregistered mechas. This opens the second and most extraordinary section of the movie, as the little mecha (and Teddy, his mecha pet bear) wander lost through the world, and he dreams of becoming a real boy and earning his “mother” Monica's love. He knows Pinocchio from his bedtime reading and believes that the Blue Fairy might be able to make him real. David and Teddy are befriended by Gigolo Joe (played by Jude Law), a love (prostitute) mecha, who is on the run for murder (he's a robot hustler). There is a sequence at a Flesh Fair, not unlike a WWE event, at which humans cheer as mechas are grotesquely destroyed. Eventually, after a harrowing escape, they arrive at Rouge City, where a “wizard” tells David where to look for the Blue Fairy.

Eventually the film returns him to his human creator. This encounter brings David the realization that he is but the first of what his creator hopes will be a line of “Davids” fit for the general market. Disheartened, David allows himself to tumble from a ledge into the ocean. David sinks to the streets of a submerged Manhattan. It is here that he encounters an old Coney Island statue that he believes is the Blue Fairy. Believing the Blue Fairy to be real, he naively asks to be turned into a real boy, repeating his wish without end, until the ocean freezes.

Two thousand years (or so) later, Manhattan is buried under several hundred feet of glacial ice, and (presumably) humans are extinct. In the process of excavating New York City from the ice, an alien-looking humanoid race (possibly the evolution of mechas? Or perhaps aliens?) find David and Teddy: functional mechas who knew living humans. Using David’s memories, the alien/mechas give David one last day with his “mother”. At the end of the day, Monica tells David that she loves him and has always loved him, then drifts to sleep for the final time, David lying beside her. He closes his eyes and goes "to that place where dreams are born".

[edit] MORAL DILEMMAS

The idea behind AI is an interesting one, full of moral dilemmas and philosophical questions. In throwing away a manufactured “boy” is this really any different from junking a computer? From a coldly logical point of view, should we think of David as more than a very advanced toy (recall the gigapet)? Do our human feelings for him make him human? It involves humanities relationship to those tools that so closely mirror our own desires that we easily confuse them with flesh and blood; and poses the question... does the flesh and blood matter? When we lose a toy, the pain is ours, not the toy's, and by following an abandoned robot boy rather than the parents who threw him away, the story challenges the conception that the robot is not entitled to the same freedoms and self-actualizations that humans uphold so fervently.

[edit] THE “REAL BOY” PARADOX

In some of the film's most intriguing passages, Spielberg explores the paradoxes that result, as David wins love and yet is never--quite--a real boy. He doesn't sleep, but he observes bedtime. He doesn't eat, but so strong is his desire to belong that he damages his wiring by ingesting spinach. David is treated with cruelty by other children; humans are frequently violent and resentful against mechas. Why? Maybe for the same reason that we swear at computers, but maybe for the same reason that we are violent and hateful toward each other.

It is in spectacular scenes set in a drowned New York that "A.I." moves into its most visionary and problematical material. In the final scenes, David is studied by presumably evolved mechas (the truly posthuman), but it is done vaguely enough that there is room for interpretation as to just who, or what, his examiners are. Are these evolved mecha? Are they alien beings from another planet? Does it even matter if they are one or the other… both are so beyond our own concept of our “humanity”.

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