Academics Get A.I. Sneak Peak
May 1 -- CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A special sneak peek of Steven Spielberg's top-secret summer film, A.I., which was held Monday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Lab, didn't go quite as planned.
Technical glitches at the Warner Bros.-sponsored symposium were followed by actual artificial-intelligence researchers punching holes into the plausibility of Spielberg's sci-fi film about a robot boy (Haley Joel Osment) programmed with human emotions.
The event was kicked off with an old-fashioned film clip of screenwriter-director Spielberg sending his regrets for not attending (he's now under pressure to complete Minority Report with Tom Cruise before a possible July 1 actors' strike). This was followed by what was supposed to be a 10-minute clip of the movie. In reality, the A.I. exclusive turned out to be only about five minutes long, and the opening scene lost most of Ben Kingsley's voiceover narration due to projection problems.
Wanted: a Robot Capable of LoveThe little footage we did see featured William Hurt as an arrogant college professor giving a class a shocking demonstration. He assaults a woman named Mecca, first stabbing her in the hand, but she does not bleed. Then he pulls off her face to expose her metallic interior and takes out her computer chip. Yes, she's a robot.
Hurt tells the class that although Mecca may be a marvel, she is devoid of emotion. He declares that they must now build an android capable of love. This prompts a student to voice what seems to be the still-ultrasecret theme of A.I.: What kind of responsibility do humans have toward a machine that can feel, even love?
Kubrick Gave Spielberg His Blessing A group of artificial intelligence heavyweights, most of them from MIT's AI Lab (which was founded in 1959), then gave a panel presentation, which was followed by Osment, who was accompanied by Spielberg's longtime producer, Kathleen Kennedy.
Kennedy, who left immediately after the presentation to go to George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic facilities, where A.I. is still in post-production, explained, "MIT had very little involvement [in making A.I.]. Steven sat on his own and wrote the screenplay … it was solitary going."
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