CLIP FILM AI - Artificial intelligence • PRODUCTION: USA, 2001 • DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg • STARRING: Haley Joel Osment (David), Jude Law (Gigolò Joe), William Hurt (professor Allen Hobby), Frances O’Connor (Monica). SYNOPSIS The story, based on the 1969 short story by Brian Aldiss, shows some similarities to Carlo Collodi’s (1883). It was originally a project of Stanley Kubrick’s, passed to his friend Steven Spielberg after his death. Super-Toys Last All Summer Long Pinocchio The story takes place in the future where greenhouse gases have caused the polar ice caps to melt, flooding coastal cities. As resources are scarce and in order to stop population growth, people wishing to have children must apply for a licence. Professor Hobby, who works for a company called Cybertronics, has just designed a new child robot, a mecha, who is capable of emotional love for his mother. Eighteen months later, Henry, a Cybertronics employee, and his wife Monica, who have a comatose son, take David, the first mecha of the new kind, home with them. However, when Martin, the real son, recovers and comes back home, he is jealous of David and the couple decides to get rid of David. Monica, not willing to give David back to Cybertronics for destruction, leaves him in the wood together with his super-toy Teddy, a speaking teddy bear. David is desperate, but he is convinced that if he could become a real boy, Monica would love him again. Inspired by the story of that Monica used to tell him, David starts a journey to find the Blue Fairy and ask her to make him a real boy. Pinocchio In the wood, he is captured and brought to a Roman Circus-style event in which mechas are tortured and killed in front of an applauding audience. However, David succeeds in running away with Gigolò Joe, a male prostitute, and they reach Rouge City, where they meet Dr Know, a hologram, to whom David asks questions about the Blue Fairy. In their quest, they reach the submerged New York City, where David finds professor Hobby and discovers that he is producing other mechas like himself. Desperate, he throws himself into the water. He is saved by Joe who is then arrested by the police. With an amphibicopter David and Teddy go underwater and find the rest of a fairytale park with a statue of the Blue Fairy. Unfortunately, a ferris wheel collapses and David and Teddy are trapped underwater. After 2,000 years and after a new Ice Age and the death of all humans, a new species of mechas finds David and Teddy. They want to study the remnants of the culture and species that created them. Searching through David’s memories, they are surprised to discover that once he lived with the humans. To make him happy, they recreate his house and ask him for a wish. David, of course, wants to see his mum again. The mechas recreate Monica from the DNA of her hair, but, unfortunately, she can live only one day. The resurrected Monica and David, along with Teddy, spend an entire day together, doing all sorts of things. When it finally comes time for them to go to sleep, Monica tells David that she loves him. With this knowledge, David himself also goes to sleep, content and happy at last, and for the first time he reaches the world of dreams like a real boy. BEFORE WATCHING 11. Answer the questions. The title of the film is . What do you think it refers to? Read the synopsis and check your answer. Artificial Intelligence Can you give a definition of artificial intelligence? What is the difference between virtual reality and artificial intelligence? How do you think the production of mechas in the Cybertronics factory is organised?