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In search of love and humanity

Terrie Todd

AI: Artificial Intelligence Warner Brothers, 2001.

Set in a futuristic world flooded by melted polar ice caps, and spanning 2000 years in 140 minutes, this movie depicts a society largely dependent on computers and robots. Writer/director Steven Spielberg takes the well-used theme of robots which pass as humans and in a Pinocchio-meets-ET tale, quickly pulls his viewers into the story of a little boy robot designed to serve as a surrogate son to a couple whose real son lies comatose with no expectation of recovery. After significant bonding has taken place between the mother and the programmed-to-love robot, the real child revives, and a weird sibling rivalry develops between the real and the wanna-be-real. Out of fear that the robot child is endangering the real, he is sent away to fend for himself in a world where robots are hated, abused, destroyed and recycled. However this little robot, designed to feel, convinces an angry mob that there is more to him than spare parts. His search to become a real boy so that his “mother” will love him leaves one with a disturbing sense of sadness as we recognize the all-too-human search for love and significance in us all, and the all-too-often empty hearts beating in lonely humans. One can’t help getting choked up by the plight of this little guy, while at the same time feeling foolish because it is, after all, only a machine.


Ironically, the boy robot is played by a real live boy (Haley Joel Osment) who himself was created in the image of God (Genesis 1-2). I wonder if he knows it?

Terrie Todd writes scripts for her church drama team in Portage La Prairie, Man.

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Last modified December 7, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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