AI: Artificial Intelligence Review Part 11: Along Came the Glitter Bots

Source Domain: mindmatters.ai

In the last review, David was stuck under a Ferris wheel, and, for some incomprehensible reason, no one bothered to look for him for 2,000 years, even though he was the most valuable piece of machinery anyone had seen up to that time. He was spending his days underwater praying to a statue of a blue fairy that Spielberg makes abundantly clear is supposed to be an allegory for God.

The narrator repeatedly uses the word “pray” while David begs the fairy to turn him into a real boy, and the camera slowly zooms out. It’s like Spielberg is screaming, “See guys? Your God is a fairy tale! Get it!” Subtle as a train.

Then we move from pretentious stupidity to cartoon stupidity. It’s already unbelievable enough that nobody looked for David when he was only a few yards from the very lab he was built in. It’s already unbelievable that nobody stumbled across him for 2,000 years.

It’s not like he was deep inside the Mariana Trench. He’s in a flooded city. You mean they didn’t try to drain the water or scavenge the submerged material under the waves? Sunken ships are discovered all the time! Why would nobody spend their resources looking for the most technologically advanced robot? But the movie isn’t content to annoy its audience with these two contrivances; it’s determined to decimate the suspension of disbelief.

After 2,000 years, aliens—you heard me right—aliens find David trapped under hundreds, if not thousands, of layers of ice. So, I need to clarify something. Steven Spielberg says that these aliens are not aliens at all. They are robots.

This was Kubrick’s original vision. His idea was to have more advanced robots find David in the future, and since David is the only robot around who’s seen humans, he’s technically the closest thing to human in his time, technically making him the realest boy of them all. Not only this, but it is…

Source