Feeling Real: Spielberg’s Uncanny Valley of A.I.

Haley Joel Osment, plays David, the first of a kind of the AI designed to love. His adventure was rather tear-provoking.

A Story About an AI Boy with a Heart

Interested in AI development? This might be your best watch. Let’s put it this way, before watching A.I. (2001), from 1 to 10, in what scale you want an AI to be your company, and in what scale you want the AI to act like human? If you are intrigued enough to score it, this film is the right one for you to watch, because it will answer to both results, whether it was primarily negativåe or positive. The film had such a beautiful acting that you could literally feel the thrilling relationships among human vs AI, and AI vs AI. The pace was absolutely intense to keep you on the edge of your seats. And the concept of A.I. was a master reference to Uncanny Valley[1].

Jude Law (on the right side), plays the role of Gigolo Joe, a prostitute android on the run after being framed for murder.

The leading role, David in the film A.I. was a new generation of Artificial Intelligence, the first of the kind, designed to “love”. To do that David must be sent to a special family where he would be loved as if that was necessary. He was sent to the best fit, a decent family in which the parents were just informed that their only kid may never wake up. Everything was getting beautiful under David’s presence, however, before David was fully trained and accommodated to human life, the original kid miraculously woke up. David was expelled from the family, and mistaken by a fairy tale that he could come home when he became a real boy, so he started his adventure of searching for the magic spell. The intriguing mistake navigated David to the main conflict--how could a mecha boy transform into a real boy?

The basic nature of David was a Mecha, which was the same as any other mechanic roles (robots) in the story, made of wires and metals instead of flesh and bones. The difference was that David’s source code was programmed to demand but not to supply, just like a human child in need of caring. While other robots obeyed human commands or fled from them, David’s unique code made him the only one who could decline human order in a childish, rebellious way. His harmless fighting was taken as evidence of living, nevertheless, that didn’t make him a real boy.

David, his super toy, Teddy met Joe in his journey. Joe decided to help David find the blue fairy who can make him a real boy.

Designed to be Loved, but Cursed to be Destroy

David was marketed to be a solution to population control and a replacement for the kid. He was destined to be a consumable entertainment, not a part of the family bond. Following that business model, he could only be loyal to one family. He should not be returned and must be destroyed if he was no use. The drama was that David was abandoned by his mother in a forest so his loyalty turned out to be a curse. When a human child is adopted into a new community, he could redefine his identity, working out his new role in the new party and getting his life back in control. For David, he could not find himself belonging to a second place. He could not earn his mother’s mercy, although all his needs would be simply dissolved in a bedtime story whispered by his mother. The thing was that David was replaceable to his mother, but not the other way around.

As David's internal transformation unfolded, we came to realize how fragile was David’s feelings as how strong was his will. In his journey, he tearfully pleaded for finding a blue fairy, and then desperately raged over the aching truth that he was not special but only the first of his model. He wanted so much to go back to his mother’s arms, but everything seemed to be a joke. As that was too much for David to take, he chose to suicide by falling into the soaring sea that flooded the city. He sank into the bottom of the ocean and finally saw a blue fairy statue. He was thrilled, then prayed again and again for a beautiful lie to come true rather than rest in peace. Despite we knew that David’s need was programmed, we could feel there was an unfinished soul trapped in the mecha body. David’s experience made him generate a powerful will and only a step away to love--if his mother could show him how to love.

David pleading with the blue fairy statue which could never answer him back

Spielberg’s Uncanny Valley

Spielberg's response to Uncanny Valley was the uniqueness of the soul. The film was titled A.I., and the two significant periods after each initial intended to separate two independent concepts: the A for shaped by human, and the I for the ability to learn as a human. We often wanted the AI to be a copy of man, hoping that it would fulfil an absent quality of our life and perhaps extend our limits. However, the human could not reverse or reenact a feeling while the mecha could. It took time for us to feel, and it might even take longer for us to digest the complexity of it. Compared to us, a mecha can decipher the information about love instantly and might live forever with it. When the advanced mechanics in the far future told David they could bring his mother back to life but only for one day, it didn’t bother him too much because he could re-experience every minute he spent with his mother.

It was rather an open-ending than a close-ending. When we finished watching, we had already felt for the mecha boy, David. We were nourished to think about AI, and lingering for its fantasy. The ending bounced off the main conflict by asking how would a human be real when every piece of its organic body would eventually decay into nothing. We are proud of having souls and so distinguish ourselves from other animals. Before we found out where our souls would go after we died, we would always be intrigued to accomplish something that had eternal meaning. David’s mother had done that by loving David as a replacement of Martin, but she eventually left David when she felt everything was getting out of control.

David's mother reading out David's activation code to make David recognize her as his mother.

She thought her original son, Martin, might never come back.

Are We Real?

The principal idea of the film is that it is the feeling making us real. The chemistry of feeling requires us to make connections to others. By the moment the chemistry occurs, the time is stamped by our unique marks of feeling and will never be the same. We create the meanings of our lives by feeling. That is why we are always searching for love and desire something like AI to continue the search. Eventually, we want our intelligence of feeling lasts forever.

As long as we feel, we live, and therefore we have been real.

The advanced mechanics in thousand years after, was deeply touched by David's will,

but they found past human lives could only be brought back to life for one day.

[1] According to Masahiro Mori, as the appearance of a robot is made more human, some observers' emotional response to the robot becomes increasingly positive and empathetic, until it reaches a point beyond which the response quickly becomes strong revulsion. However, as the robot's appearance continues to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once again and approaches human-to-human empathy levels