I've greatly enjoyesd reading the differing thoughts on AI, let me throw in my own thougths on the matter. I was pretty passive about this movie; i didn't love it, i didn't hate it. Well acted, good effects. I did, however, think that it was aiming towards some far off and lofty place that it never quite reached. The film had a lot of potential and could have dipped a hand wonderfully into modern philosophy and cognitive science. It didn't qutie manage this.
I felt that it was reflecting current trends in thought and can be considered in some ways very controversial. Ultimately i felt it wasn't so much about the technology being "alive" as being "intelligent" (as the title states). For me, the potential of this movie involved the bringing forth - in an explicit way or not - of questions and postulates about teh nature of intelligence, and i was quite excited about that prospect; do you have to be human (or biological) to possess intelligence? is intelligence synonomous with the brain? Is intelligence equal to the thought processes and other mental events that we carry out internally, and if so can we programme a piece of technology to be intelligent if we can programme it to repeat the same steps that we take during thinking? Are computesr carrying out a mere set of preprogrammed steps or algorithms or are they actually capable of thought? If computers/technology can be designed to emulate human thought and intelligence, this creates a uniquely modern way of examining the human condition. But as i say, i don't think it quite reached this potential. Perhaps this wasn't even the underlying aim, this is just the way in which i interpreted the premise of AI; perhaps that explains why i was slightly disappointed:) GARRET
