Cloud Hosting

The conversation surrounding the future of Artificial Intelligence weighs heavily on the possibility of artificial life becoming a sentient threat to the human race. Steven Spielbergs (The Fabelmans) A.I. Artificial Intelligence changes the tone of this conversation and turns a mirror to mankind, a reminder that humans are solely responsible for what they bring into the world.

A.I. opens on a catastrophic picture. Surging waves swallow the screen as a narrator tells the familiar tale of a planet ravaged by humans. With only the developed world left with a fighting chance, humans turned to an invention that would maximize economic profit and minimize resource consumption: mecha (humanoid robots).

The idea for A.I. comes from the minds of cinema legends Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick (The Shining), both recognized for their influence on the sci-fi genre. Kubrick conceived A.I. about two decades before passing the project to Spielberg, deciding he would be better suited to handling the intensely sentimental material. Elements of The Adventures of Pinocchio and even Mary Shelleys Frankenstein can be found in A.I. a story driven by the love for and the desire to be loved by our creators. Although Kubrick did not live to see the final cut, his influence on A.I. is present and valuable to one of Spielbergs darkest and most lachrymose tales of heartbreak, humanity and brutality.

In the world of A.I., Mecha become more than just a means to survive, and the cybertronic industry begins mass-marketing them for human use. David (Haley Joel Osment, The Sixth Sense), a prototype Mecha built to resemble a young boy and programmed to feel love, is given to grieving couple Henry (Sam Robards, American Beauty) and Monica Swinton (Frances OConnor, The Conjuring 2) after their ailing son Martin (Jake Thomas, Lizzie McGuire) is placed in cryostasis.

Once warmed to him, Monica recites an imprinting code that causes David to feel unconditional love for her. David relishes life as her son until Martin is miraculously cured and becomes vindictively jealous of David. The tension culminates in an unfortunate incident that triggers a decision to disassemble David. Monica, unable to send David to his destruction, instead abandons him with Teddy (Jack Angel, Toy Story), Martins Mecha teddy bear. Monica warns David to stay away from humans: Im sorry I didnt tell you about the world, she tells him. In a scene shot in beautiful Spielberg fashion, David begs Monica not to leave him and clings to the side of the car, his small figure confined in the cars side-view mirror as she accelerates away.

The meaning behind Monicas warning is revealed shortly, as David proves himself to be just as vulnerable to the world as a human child would be. He, along with Teddy, is captured by a Flesh Fair a sadistic, circus-esque spectacle and Spielberg spares the audience no discomfort in the films most disturbing scene.

Let he who is without Sim cast the first stone, Flesh Fair presenter Lord Johnson-Johnson (Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin) preaches sanctimoniously to the crowd of humans who roar as Mecha are tortured, blown apart, melted and disassembled barbarically at the Flesh Fair: Celebration of Life. This allusion to John 8:7 of the Bible equates the quality of artificial life to sinfulness, demonstrating that the humans of this future have failed to advance beyond the tendency to fear the unknown and seek to destroy the unnatural. In the words of a Mecha awaiting slaughter, 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. Thats why they hate us. The thought is a warning we must heed a sad reminder of the human inability to look past otherness and perceive without judgment, resentment or hate.

David and Teddy narrowly escape the Flesh Fair, spared by the chaos made by the onlookers who are stricken by Davids likeness to a helpless child. In this sequence, Kubricks influence is found in the unforgiving depiction of violence and Spielbergs incredible ability to invoke empathy for his characters is on full display. David, doe-eyed and clutching Teddy, starkly contrasts the violence of his surroundings. The Kubrick-Spielberg fusion paints the bleak picture that is the backdrop to Davids innocence reminiscent of Spielbergs E.T. and even the little girl in the red coat in Schindlers List.

Spielberg juxtaposes the humanity of the Mecha with the wickedness of humans, urging the audience to disagree with the notion that artificial life cannot grant humanity, and that biological life alone endows it. A re-examination of the first act of A.I., though less brutal and more subtle in its messaging than the second, reveals that this theme has already been introduced by Spielberg.When there are two boys living in the Swinton home, it is not the artificial child who exhibits spiteful and manipulative behavior it is the real child. Monica, who warns David of other humans, commits perhaps the cruelest act of all herself giving David the ability to love in order to fill a void in her life, then abandoning him to fall prey to her predator kin.

Even though Monica disowns him, David recalls a story she once read to him about a marionette who desperately wanted to be a real boy and whose wish was granted by a fairy. David sets off on a journey to meet the Blue Fairy (Meryl Streep, The Post) from The Adventures of Pinocchio, believing Monica will love him again if he is made into a real boy.

The story of Pinocchio is a much milder, more compassionate version of Shelleys Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. A.I. favors the darkness of the gothic tale. Both stories scrutinize the risks and ethics of advanced technology in the hands of human beings. Popular media has redrawn the face of Shelleys masterpiece as a token of camp horror, but it is in fact a science fiction tale. Dr. Frankenstein, a gifted but obsessive scientist, succeeds in creating sapient life only to reject his creation and leave it to suffer alone in the unforgiving world.

Without a soul to guide or console it, the monster contemplates its existence harshly with a passionate self-hatred sprung from the pervasive separation between itself and the race of men. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the Earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?

When the monster confronts its creator, it asks Frankenstein why he would give life to a thing he could only hate and cast it away to be shunned and abused by all of mankind I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.

The monster, though composed of adult body parts and of frightening stature, possesses a childlike optimism and curiosity similar to David in A.I. Both creations are abandoned callously and spend their journeys in near absolute solitude as they live on with the sole ambition of reuniting with their creators. The Modern Prometheus and Modern Pinocchio raise the question of how we define humanity, as Shelley and Spielberg bring attention to the flaws of men and the empathy we feel for the other.

Frankenstein and A.I. should be taken as warnings rather than mere works of fiction. Shelley explores the delicate relationship between creator and creation that is sensitive to imbalance, the supernatural elements of her work serving as a vehicle to convey the consequences of playing God. Themes of creation and acceptance are shared with A.I. a less miraculous but imaginative cautionary tale of our future as a society if we continue on the path we are on, and an intelligent commentary of the morality of A.I. and how we understand humanity. Still, at the heart of the analogous stories of Frankensteins monster and David is the simple yet profound desire to be loved by their creators.

The fulfillment of this desire takes the form of maternal love in Davids story, a natural force so desperately needed that it manifests between a human and a Mecha. Maternal love, and the mercy of a woman, anchors Davids poignant journey as Monica and the Blue Fairy are idolized and worshipped in his adoring eyes. In the face of tragedy and atrocity, it is these two feminine figures that keep Davids hope and humanity intact. At worlds end, where the lions weep, David finds himself face-to-face with a statue of the Blue Fairy, submerged underwater among the relics of a sunken Coney Island. She who smiled softly forever, she who welcomed forever. Eventually, the floodlights dimmed and died, but David could still see her palely by day and he still addressed her in hope.

Centuries pass before a battery-drained David is woken by alien-like, evolved Mecha in a world without humans. In their meeting, an evolved Mecha confesses, I often felt a sort of envy of human beings. Of that thing they call spirit. Human beings have created a million explanations of life: in art, in poetry and mathematical formulas. Certainly, human beings must be the key to the meaning of existence. The words of this Mecha revisit the question of humanity, and the audience is reminded of the future society Spielberg presented to them impaired by technological materialism and devoid of the noble pursuits and pleasures that give life meaning. David, the last artifact of human existence, possesses what the humans of his time did not: the very spirit that allowed him to find purpose in life through love and wish for nothing more than his mothers affection.

What may appear as impertinent or illusive ideas from A.I. and even Frankenstein are in fact valuable analyses of mankind that are essential to the modern discourse on AI. We should not just ask ourselves whether artificial beings are trustworthy, but if we are. As A.I. warns us, the pursuit of an automated future may cost us our humanity our spirit. And in such a world so bleak and colorless, the meaning of existence is lost.

Daily Arts Writer Maya Ruder can be reached at mayarud@umich.edu.

Read more:
On Humanity and Brutality in 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' - The Michigan Daily