AI - Angel Hebert, Mika Parent, Sean Winslow, Zashelle Leduc

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBUAQGwzGk0

Title: A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Year: 2001
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriter: Steven Spielberg
Lead actors: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, Brendan Gleeson and William Hurt
Running time: 146 minutes

A.I. Artificial Intelligence takes place in the future. It is about a couple that adopts a robot boy (named
David) while their son (Martin)  is in a seemingly endless coma. Martin gets better and tricks David into
doing things which make him seem threatening to the family, getting him kicked out. Lost, David
searches for the blue fairy (the mystical being from Pinnochio) to turn him into a real boy so that Monica
(the mother of the family) will love and accept him.

On the way, he allies with a pleasure bot named Gigolo Joe who leads him to Dr.Know (an A.I
programmed with all of the information known to humankind). David asks Dr.Know about the location
of the blue fairy and Dr.Know (taken over by the inventors of David) tells him that she is at the end of
the world (Manhattan).

In Manhattan, David discovers that he is not the only “David” robot and goes through an identity crisis,
during which he attempts suicide (by jumping off of a skyscraper into the ocean which covers the
flooded street) and stumbles across the blue fairy (which is actually just a statue) at the bottom of the
ocean. David takes an all terrain submarine/helicopter to the depths of the ocean where he spends two
thousand years begging the Blue Fairy to transform him into a real boy. Future Mecha uncover David
and resurrect Monica for a single day (during which she says “I love you to him”) so that he, the last
thing resembling human life, will be happy.

Overall, the plot of the story seemed a little all over the place and repeatedly digressed from the story’s
artstyle, making the entire movie seem like many mini films which were shoved together in a hurry. The
ending of the story being its weakest part. The decision to have David frozen in the ice for 2000 years
was a poor one, as there are many more palatable ways of explaining to the audience that David really
wanted to be a real boy.

Perhaps making up for this film’s messy plot and outrageous ending, is its use of film techniques.
From an artistic standpoint, this film was very well accomplished. It’s clear that every decision regarding
a frame, cut, sound, beam of light and character was made purposefully. This allows the individual
l moments of this film to not only be well composed and balanced, but also significant as the art style
behind each second has the capability to contribute to the story. Below, is a list of the top 5 techniques
that we believe A.I. Artificial Intelligence had mastered and examples of when they were used.

Framing-close-ups, long shots, camera angles

In the beginning of the movie (just before David and Monica play "hide and seek") David startles his
mother with his sudden movements.  David's movements weren't necessarily startling, but because the
camera chose to follow Monica and hide David’s location the audience is left with a bit of a jump scare.
This helps dehumanize David and make him seem like a monster which is wanted so that the audience
understands why the parents choose to get rid of him. This scene also helps demonstrate David’s
duality as a sweet innocent boy and an evil machine.

When Monica is abandoning David in the forest (particularly in the part when she is about to run to her
car) the camera chooses to focus on the mother instead of David.This really illustrates to everyone that
this isn’t Monica’s first choice and that she feels forced to leave him. She is clearly upset in the scene
and she feels bad for David. This adds emotion to the scene as many parents can connect with the
heart wrenching feeling of having to abandon one of their children. Another possible reason for why
Spielberg chose to focus on Monica in that scene instead of David is because we are about to spend
the rest of the movie with David and therefore have plenty of time to understand how he feels about
the situation, but this is one of the last times we see Monica.

Editing-short takes, long takes, cross-cutting

There is a small amount of cross cutting between David’s story and the introduction of Joe. This allows
the movie to add a fairly elaborate background story to Joe without disturbing the pace of David’s story.
It would be a little annoying to have David’s story completely interrupted just so that we can watch
some new character the audience hasn’t built any connection to.

When David is tucking his mother into bed at the end of the movie, the shots are very long, possibly
the longest out of the entire film. This is to allow the audience time to examine their faces, to see how
happy David is to hear his mother say “I love you” and show how he’s savouring every second of the
moment. It is also important to have long shots during segments which are trying to build up this kind
of emotional feeling because of how delicate the scene is. The editor’s don’t want to distract you with
quick changes between camera angles. They want you to be left with a picture and become
comfortable with it.

Sound

There is a lot of non-diegetic music during David’s first day at the house. The music used was created
by a combination of high, distinct electronic and orchestral piano notes. It was disturbing and a little
suspenseful. This helps build David as a potential threat, and makes the audience uneasy around him.

When David is first introduced to the other David (the one in the spinning chair) there is a loud, angry,
non-diegetic noise played that sounds like a large piece of metal against a great amount of tension.
This sound represents David’s rage and it only continues to grow louder and more volatile right up until
David releases it, while decapitating David 2.o.

Lighting

When Monica is reading the words to activate David’s love for her, the lighting is very bright and pure
to symbolise hope and the possibility of happiness. The use of high-key lighting is especially useful in
this scene because the film has just spent twenty or so minutes showing how terrifying David is. The
movie needed to balance that out somehow before she could read those words to him.

In the scene where David is walking through the professor’s lab and he sees all of the other Davids
hung up on the wall, David walks from a dark area to a very bright point in the room. The lighting in this
room symbolises a moment of epiphany for David. He slowly starts walking past all of the other Davids,
realizing that he isn’t one of a kind at all, until he reaches the logo on the wall where he learns about his
“birth” (point of origin).

Characters

David is a robot designed to be a young boy who fills the void left by the missing son of Monica and her
husband. David has blue eyes, blonde hair, and beige skin. In the beginning of the film we are
introduced to David very cautiously. The film uses several techniques (mainly through framing and
non-diegetic sounds) to characterize David as a possible threat. Film techniques aren’t the only thing
this film uses to dehumanize David as it also uses the Uncanny Valley. Many of his actions (especially
in the beginning like when he was handing his clothes to Henry so that he could be dressed) are very
close to our own and yet distinctly off, making him even creepier. As the film progresses David’s
camera time and his clear love for his mother start humanizing him and the audience learns to accept
him as the star of the film. David is a three dimensional character as he undergoes several emotional
changes throughout the film and he even learns how to love.

In addition, we have Monica. Monica is a mother and wife. She is “feminine” in the sense that she has
a large heart and is quick to forgive, but is far from a “barbie girl”. Sadly, her child was involved in some
sort of accident which seemed to leave him in a coma for quite some time. During this time, she and
her husband adopt a robot boy to fill the gap of their missing child. Monica initially is disgusted by the
idea of having a robot replace her son, but she grows accustomed to the idea. At the end of the movie,
we even hear her… we think, say “I love you” to David. Monica has brown hair, blue eyes, and pale
skin. She is a developed character as her personality grows and changes as she slowly falls in love
with David. However, even though she is a three dimensional character, she is used objectively as her
clear role in the story is to motivate David and act as his elixir in the end.

A universal issue raised by the film is global warming and its impact on Earth in the future. This issue is
brought to the audience’s attention right at the beginning of the movie, as the film begins with a narrator
listing most of the major cities that became submerged due to the melting of the ice caps. Since the
movie is set in the future, it brings to light the urgency of our planet’s state and how we will end up if
we continue on our current path.

Another question raised by the film is how we will eventually deal with the overpopulation of the planet.
In the film, people require licenses in order to have children, which is their way of putting a cap on the
overall population. However, this way of stopping people from having children is what leads to the
creation of David, the robot-boy who can love. By requiring people to need a license to procreate, this
society has guaranteed that robots will eventually outnumber humans and reign forever.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence even goes as far as to directly point out the “conundrum” of whether or not y
ou “can get a human to love them [mecha] back”. Creating human substitutes isn’t as easy as creating
an even perfect replica of a person (something which is nowhere near an easy feat) if us humans don’t
accept it. Maybe the key to advancing social robot technology is to spend fewer resources augmenting
the robots physical capacity and more on expanding our own emotional capacity.

1757 words

Like all films, this movie has its strengths and weaknesses. However, unlike a lot of other films, we think
the good outweighs the bad.

    The film does an excellent job addressing many concerns people may have when it comes to the
future Earth and our society. Something we appreciated was how it emphasized consequences that
could arise from the advancements of technology and A.I.; some people become disconnected from
other humans through “lover bots,” while others become more connected through their hatred for the
mecha-bots. We also found the idea of people needing licenses to have children very interesting. We
often wonder how overpopulation will be handled in the future when we begin to run out of the
resources necessary to sustain all of us. We were pleased to see that the movie didn’t ignore that
problem, especially since a crucial part of the plot is that it’s set in the future. Global warming was also
something addressed by the film, to our delight. There was a solid emphasis on what is going to
happen to the world once all of the ice caps have melted, and the narrator listing all of the cities that
would become completely submerged added to the urgency of the matter.

   
Not only were the concepts addressed interesting, the editing was quite well done as well. There were
a couple of moments in the film where we were genuinely impressed with the special effects-- which is
not something you’d suspect of a film that’s 17 years old. Although 17 years old may not seem that old,
the quality of special effects has risen at an almost exponential rate over the years and this movie did a
stellar job with what they had. The mecha-bots looked completely real; we especially admired the
nanny and her almost-completely detached head. The future-mecha at the end of the movie were also
edited quite well, so much so that I’m still not sure if they are CGI or costumed people in front of a
green screen.

    As well as editing being well done, the choice of actors really brought the whole film together. Haley
Joel Osment did a fantastic job playing David; he was able to sound both robotic and child-like, which,
honestly, was a little bit creepy. We nonetheless greatly appreciated his performance. Jude Law
played Gigolo Joe, the only character I’ve ever seen that manages to be both useless and a main
character at the same time. Joe doesn’t contribute much to the plot, and he spends most of his time
just following David around. However, Jude Law is a beauty and a talented actor, so we shouldn’t
complain about him being cast no matter what character he plays. Just look at him:

Like we said, we can’t complain. Although the performances from the actors who played David’s
mother and father (Frances O’Connor and Sam Robards) were a bit rocky, especially during emotional
scenes, they weren’t bad enough to render the entire movie bad. They still got their point across and
overall did an adequate job. An example of a rocky performance is the scene between them right after
David gets introduced to Monica (O’Connor); the only line Henry (Robards) has is “I’ll do whatever you
want me to do!” Yet we felt like somehow he managed to make it awkward instead of desperate.
However, like what was said earlier, this didn’t really impact the overall film much.

   
This is where we digress to the weaknesses of the film, mainly the ending. Let’s get this out of the
way: the movie was too long. Unless it’s a Lord of The Rings movie, two hours and twenty minutes is
too long; especially when the ending is drawn out more than it should be. Not to mention the entire
time we were watching the ending, we thought the “future mecha-bots” were aliens. Take a look
yourself:

Don’t those look like aliens? They even look like they have little galaxies in them! All in all, it
wasincredibly unclear, especially since the movie never mentions what they are. We also feel
as though the happy ending was quite forced. Had the movie just ended with David finding the
Blue Fairy and forever being trapped in the submarine next to her, it would have been sufficient
and just as enjoyable. We find that the robot-aliens were way too much of a deus ex machina
moment, and they seemed completely out of place.

  
  Overall, we genuinely enjoyed the movie a lot more than we originally thought we would. We began
the movie completely doubting that it would make us emotional, and ended the movie feeling like the
complete opposite of a sociopath. So I’d recommend watching it, but if you want the best experience,
end it before the robot-aliens come into play.

The overall movie was genuinely enjoyable, and if it hadn’t been for the ending we’d have maybe given
it a 4.5/5 star rating. However, the ending is a crucial part of the movie, and since the ending is the
weakest part of the movie, we are going to have to settle for a 3.5/5 star rating.

This movie relates heavily to the concept of the uncanny valley. The uncanny valley is when a
robot isn’t human-like enough to evoke empathy, but also isn’t unrealistic enough so it’s neutral
to us; therefore, the result is that the robot just makes people uncomfortable, and bonds can’t
be formed between robots and humans. The concept of the uncanny valley can be seen clearly
when David is first introduced to Monica, his soon-to-be mother. As soon as she lays eyes on
him, she becomes borderline hysterical and yells at her husband. She asks him “I mean Henry,
did you see his face? He's, he's so real. But he's not...” (Watson, Aldiss). David is real enough t
o pass as a human, but there is still something about him that is robot-like so Monica is
uncomfortable; he is the definition of the uncanny valley. Since he is not completely human-like,
it’s difficult for Monica to feel empathy towards him at the beginning of their relationship.
However, as the movie progresses and David becomes more human-like and develops a
consciousness, people become more empathetic towards him. There is a moment in the movie,
when Monica abandons David in the woods, where David is in between being in the uncanny
valley and being accepted as human. That’s why Monica abandons him; she is uncomfortable
in his presence but feels enough empathy to not have him destroyed. At the end of the movie,
he has reached almost human-level consciousness and is able to at least form relationships
that resemble human-human interactions; therefore, this movie is mainly about how a robot
escapes the uncanny valley and becomes human-like enough to form genuine relationships.
   

Another concept that is brought up in the film is the idea of selfhood in robots. It isn’t as
prominent as the uncanny valley, but it is in some ways connected to the uncanny valley
concept. There are two parts to selfhood, the core or minimal self, and the self-aware self.
The core or minimal self is the one in which something just exists. Robots in our society today
have the core or minimal self but without neuronal capacities. They are not aware of their own
existence. The self-aware self is being aware of one’s own existence and being able to
represent one’s awareness. We do this when we refer to ourselves as “I,” which is not
something many animals or beings can do. Both selves are an important part of this movie in
relation to David and the other robots. Most robots would just have the core or minimal self,
but the objective with David is to get him to have a self-aware self because that’s an important
part of being human.

At the beginning of the movie, Hobby explicitly states that the goal with David is “a robot child,
who can love. […] Love will be the key by which they acquire a kind of subconscious never
before achieved. An inner world of metaphor, of intuition, of self motivated reasoning. Of
dreams” (Watson, Aldiss). To have self motivated reasoning, we must have a self-aware self
and be aware of their own existence. When David begins wishing to be a real boy, he shows
that he has a self-aware self; he is able to determine and express what he wants in life by
being aware of his subconscious.

It’s not only David who shows signs of having a self-aware self, however, there was another
robot who also demonstrated that he was self aware: Joe. When Joe is being taken away at the
end of the movie, he shouts “I am… I was!” (Watson, Aldiss). He can self-proclaim himself as I,
therefore, he has a self-aware self. Earlier on in the movie as well, Joe is talking to David about
how his mother will not love him because he is a robot, “She loves what you do for her, as my
customers love what it is I do for them. […] They made us too smart, too quick, and too many.
We are suffering for the mistakes they made because when the end comes, all that will be left is
us” (Watson, Aldiss). He is aware that he was built; he knows that he has a future, and he can
make predictions of the future as well as distinguish the differences between him and humans.
Though the other robots are thought to just have a core or minimal self, Joe shows that he has
just as much of a self-aware self as any other human.

As a third concept, we can see throughout the movie that the concept of sentience is at its
heart. Sentience is the ability of a certain creature to experience something. Indeed, the subject
is able to feel, sense and notice the presence of a certain stimulus. This stimulus could be many
things like pain, pleasure and emotions such as love. The latter is in fact exactly what the movie
brings to our attention. David’s amazing attribute and difference in comparison to other robots is
his ability to love. It’s at the moment when David is shown this capacity that we can attribute him
sentience. Without love, David’s in fact only a robot that doesn’t feel anything. This actually
shown in the scene where he is repaired after having eat spinach. He tells his mom that it’s
okay, that he doesn't feel it. From this point of view, we can’t say that he is sentient. However,
now that he feels love towards Monica, we could argue that he is but in the same idea of a
worm, we know it reacts but is it really feeling it? David’s actually a robot programmed to feel
love towards the person that will say the protocol needed. Can we therefore say that he really
feels this love? David’s love is a great representation of the questions around sentience that we
analysed in class. At what point does something become sentient exactly?

Three questions that this film raises are:

1- Should David be considered as a real boy and for instance be granted personhood?

2- Why would you be for or against the manufacturing of child-like robots as replacement for the loss
of a child?

3- At what point would you think that artificial intelligence could ultimately be threatening humanity?

This film is about the future possibilities of artificial intelligence and the potential negative down sides
to its integration in our society. The focus of this film is mostly on the emotional issues they will cause
humanity.  These articles discuss problems that would come from the integration of artificial intelligence
socially and how artificial intelligence stands in our world currently.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/top-10-ethical-issues-in-artificial-intelligence/

http://www.toptenz.net/10-amazing-and-slightly-terrifying-facts-about-ai.php#prettyPhoto

Works Cited:

    AI (Artificial Intelligence) - IMDb, June 2001. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212720/ Accessed: 8
March 2018

    AI (Artificial Intelligence). Directed by Steven Spielberg. Company credits: Warner Bros.,
Dreamworks, Amblin Entertainment, Stanley Kubrick Productions, 2001

[Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved from

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