In the previous review, David had thrown himself from the window ledge of a building. He sinks into the ocean below and is about to vanish inside a hole. Then a random swarm of fish surrounds him and carries him out of the hole. Why? I have no idea. It makes no sense. Anyway, after the school of fish intervenes, David drifts until he comes to rest on a platform. He sees something and reaches for it, but then a metal clamp grabs him and pulls him to the surface.
It turns out Joe saw David attempt to end his life from the helicopter. Apparently, this aircraft can also go underwater, so Joe and Teddy are able to rescue the robot. Joe helps David into the helicopter, and David tells him that he saw the blue fairy. But before they can all climb into the aircraft to find the fairy, Joe’s metal necklace begins to float, then so does Joe.
David looks up and sees another helicopter hovering above them. Joe tells David, ‘bye’, in a fashion, then looks down on David and says, “I am.” He hits a button that closes the helicopter hatch, and the last thing he says is, “I was.”
This was most likely a jab against Rene Descartes, who is famous for the saying, “I think, therefore, I am.” The reason I believe this is because the entire point behind AI: Artificial Intelligence is the quote, “Nobody knows what ‘real’ really means.” Descartes was trying to establish how a man can know whether or not he exists.
So, I’m sure Spielberg thought this quip was fitting. Of course, Spielberg was so busy being profound that he missed something. If this super magnet hovering above the cast was capable of picking up Joe, why didn’t it grab David, or the entire helicopter, for that matter? You’ve gotta love how pretension can blind someone from the obvious.
As to refuting the quip, I think Spielberg was trying to make an equivocation. His basic claim is that since there is no definition for “real,” a robot is essentially the same as a human since they act like humans.
If something passes the Turing Test, that is to say, if someone cannot tell the difference between a robot and a man during a text-only conversation, then the machine is for all intents and purposes real. The problem is that Spielberg ignores the Chinese Room Argument. This argument is basically an analogy. If someone is put inside a room with only a manual that explains the correct responses to Chinese symbols, then someone gives that man a group of Chinese symbols, the man may produce the correct replies, but that doesn’t mean he understands Chinese. A robot is perfectly capable of following a set of rules, but the robot doesn’t understand what those rules mean.
The film has already proven that this is the case, and I doubt Spielberg realized it. David’s behaviour hasn’t replicated love but obsession. If he loved Monica, he would obviously show more concern for Martin when her real son nearly drowns. Even if David felt nothing towards Martin, David would understand that if Martin dies, Monica would be hurt.
However, he doesn’t apologize to Monica until it’s apparent that she’s going to leave him in the woods. Instead, he acts like nothing is wrong and begins drawing pictures for her. When David sees another version of himself, he doesn’t ask whether or not he’s really alive or wonder if the other robot is just as alive as he is.
David destroys the other robot because he sees it as a threat, something that might steal Monica’s affection. Whenever David talks about Monica loving him, he’s always bringing up the things she’ll do for him, not what he can do for her. These are not loving traits. At best, they are some programmer’s—or writer’s—definition of love. At worst, they are distorted attempts at mimicry.
David may be able to hug, but he clearly doesn’t know what a hug means. It’s a programmed response. The movie’s own logic demands that this is the case, but I highly doubt that this was Spielberg’s intent.
Once Joe is captured, David and Teddy submerge the futuristic helicopter and find a statue of the blue fairy, which is located in a ruined amusement park. A Ferris wheel conveniently falls on the helicopter, trapping the pair. David begins asking the blue fairy to make him a real boy. Nothing happens, but he continues to ask as the camera zooms away from them.
A narrator explains that David kept praying—that’s right; they use the word “pray”—to the blue fairy, and he continued doing so until he is shut off. Then two thousand—that’s right; two thousand—years pass. At this point in the film, the ocean is a giant sheet of ice, and humans are no more.
Obviously, using the word “pray” is another petty shot at religion, but I’ll wait to address that “subtle” messaging. First, I want to address the other reasons this entire sequence is terrible. It’s not like Professor Hobby ceased to exist once he was off camera, and if this professor, who has spent a considerable amount of time and money on David, returns and finds David gone, what is he going to do?
Is he going to shrug and move on to the next project? No! Of course not! He’s going to start scrambling around, looking for his robot. And is the audience really supposed to believe that Professor Hobby didn’t notice Teddy and Joe hovering outside his office in a helicopter? Again, no! Hobby is going to find Joe, even if he has to go through the police, and ask Joe what happened.
Joe is going to tell him because he has no reason not to. Then Hobby is going to send somebody to retrieve his property. But, even if Hobby didn’t ask Joe, there are not that many places David could hide.
Eventually, he’s going to start searching the waters below his office. If he were a halfway intelligent character, he’d probably figure out that David had an existential crisis and tried to end his life. There is simply no way that David would be stuck inside that helicopter for two-thousand years.
At this point, the movie goes off the rails entirely. The audience is forced to endure not just a deus ex machina, but a deus ex ET—or robot, but I had to do a little digging to find that out. I’ll cover what happens in the third act and the anti-God messaging in the next review.