Large Image Display: AI: Artificial Intelligence: Teddy
|
|
Here we see 'Teddy', the faithful robotic companion of our robotic child protagonist throughout the film. Mum has just taken him out of his box, placed him on the floor, and turned him on. He is revealed here to be a fully articulate, yet still light, soft and furry humanoid robot, intended to double as a teddy bear. Other robotic films since AI have also picked up on the teddy bear robot motif. One of note is Screamers, which took the robot in an altogether more sinister direction. The type 2 screamer killer robot is a little boy, who holds a teddy bear. The book screamers is based upon also lists this description. Yet, what is does not list is the way the film builds upon it. There, the lost boy robot also carries a second robot - a surveillance drone in the form of that little bear. Partially ambulatory, the bear is still cute and fuzzy, offering no real threat. However, it is also a tracking system, with some degree of ambulatory movement, as the film makes quite clear; one drags itself into the escape capsule back to Earth.
This then exposes the teddy bear robot to both sides of the equation. The opportunity for a self-aware toy to act as a partial guide to a young child, and the potential for any 'toy' on the shelf to act as self-aware surveillance unit, whether for good or for ill. In a way, this is an even stronger argument for the 'morality core' Teddy in AI possesses, than the arguments AI makes itself. A toy entrusted with the safety of the charge it is protecting, is a great deal less likely to also be spying for nefarious purposes, if it is gifted with n understanding of morality, by the initial programmers and set-up of the building blocks of its mind. Further ReadingLink: AI: Artificial Intelligence Link: AI - Artificial Intelligence: Index of Stills
|