When is Intelligence Artificial?

Another Ishmael/Isaac story is Speilberg's film "Artificial Intelligence" (2001). The conflict here is between natural humans and 'artificial' humans or robots, a classic human vs machine story. Though distorted by Speilberg's Peter Pan fixation, the story like many says more than it knows. The little boy robot David, lovingly created by the human robot maker played by Wm Hurt - like the doll-maker in Pinochio, which this story is an acknowledged reworking of - is shown to be more human than his makers. The story, like that of 'Stranger than Fiction', is about trying to work up from natural intelligence to spiritual intelligence, an effort that is impossible but failing at it is sometimes fruitful. The story takes place in the not-too-distant future when climate change has caused the seas to rise and drown many large cities like New York, and may millions of humans have died off. Childbirth has been severely limited by governments, and there is a market for robot children. A couple who have a seriously ill son and are not allowed to have other children of their own 'adopt' a robot named David, who is a new model supposedly capable of love. David is not well received by human children and when the couple's human son unexpectedly recovers he torments David. Having heard the story of Pinochio read to him by his 'Mother', he concludes if he can find the blue fairy she will make him a real boy and his 'mother' will love him. She abandons him alone in the woods (except for his faithful teddy-bear robot) and he has many misadventures among the robot population and the humans who hate them. Eventually he makes his way to the drowned city of New York where some humans still live in the upper floors of skyscrapers and he meets his maker (Wm Hurt) who shows him a whole line of robots identical to him. Despondent, he tries to drown himself but sees a theme park of Pinochio at street-level, and is saved by his robot friend Joe the gigolo, who helps him return to the drowned theme park and the statue of the blue fairy. David prays to her to make him a real boy, and he does so for 2000 yrs, during which all humans die out and a race of robots arises, some of which find David buried in the long-frozen sea. The advanced robots read David's mind and try to convince him that since his mother and all humans are long dead his mission to become human and then see his 'mother' again is hopeless, but they admit they can rebuild her from a bit of DNA, and his faithful bear just happens to have a lock of her hair.

Speilberg's story is intended to be entirely Ishmael-rational, i.e. natural. The 'artificial' intelligence of the robots is more human than that of their human creators, and the race of robot survivors act lovingly toward each other and toward David. Their intelligence is spiritual but Speilberg has no language for this, as naturals cannot. In truth the intelligence that is 'artificial' (false, insane) is that of the humans who hate the robots and each other, and of the human robot-makers who see the robots as servants, sex-objects, etc. What Speilberg is calling 'artificial' is really spiritual intelligence, but it is magic or fantasy for him. This unsatisfactory and unbelievable result should tell us we need to look elsewhere, to religion, to find out how to get from Ishmael-reason to Isaac-reason.