AI, phone home
Many tears, less science
GIVEN what it takes to create brains, the science is really quite incidental in “AI: Artificial Intelligence”, which opened in America on June 29th and premieres in Britain on September 21st. Steven Spielberg simply assumes that some day it will be possible to create an affectionate robot. Instead of technological detail and hard science, he delivers a gripping, and emotionally draining, modern fairytale—an updated Pinocchio—about what it means to be human and, above all, what it is to love.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “AI, phone home”
From the June 30th 2001 edition
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