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A.I.: the movie(a subtopic of Science Fiction) * * * THIS PAGE IS NO LONGER BEING UPDATED * * *
Since we know practically nothing about the film's storyline, we are simply providing some basic, introductory material to help you to not only get an overview of the landscape, but also to equip you to further explore the topics that interest you whether in our web site or elsewhere. Moreover, when the details of the film do become known, we doubt that this page will change* because it is not our intent to respond to any particular aspect of the film but rather to address the increased awareness of AI that will result when this acronym becomes a part of the everyday vocabulary. * Now that the movie has been released, we have added a a Post-Release Addendum with reviews and articles. SciFi movies have a rich history of being both the virtual stage on which we can come face-to-face with the potential consequences of our scientific endeavors as well as the inspiration behind many scientific careers. One need only look at Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, to appreciate the impact that a SciFi movie can have. Many of the resources collected here will help define the contours of the science of artificial intelligence: its history, what it has accomplished, the current research (including video clips of some very real AI projects), what is just over the horizon, and what remains out of reach. Other materials collected on this page address the ethical and philosophical issues that are as old as the concept of artificial intelligence itself. For example: What does it mean to be human? What is intelligence? And just because we may be able to create various intelligent beings, do we really want to? The resources that appear below are but a small sampling of those that can be found in our AI Topics web site. You can access the site via the three pull-down menus at the top of this page (or simply take a shortcut to either the Site Map or the A-Z Index). As you explore our site please keep in mind that because you are our audience, we're always interested in your comments and suggestions. And finally, by using AI Topics as a springboard, you can discover an ocean of additional resources on the Web and in your local library. Good Places to StartThe Official Warner Brothers "A.I." site. (from our Science Fiction page) What is Artificial Intelligence? By John McCarthy. Computer Science Department, Stanford University. One of the founders of the field of AI, McCarthy covers the basics in a question and answer format. (from our AI Overview page) Artificial Intelligence. Entry by David B. Leake in Van Nostrand Scientific Encyclopedia. To appear in the Ninth Edition. Wiley; New York, 2002. (from our Reference Shelf page) A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence. By Bruce Buchanan. A chronology of significant events in the history of AI. (from our History page) A Chat about the Future of Artificial Intelligence with Professor James Hendler. Provided by CNN. Interview date: December 16, 1999. Very lively and very informative! (from our Interviews page) AI's Greatest Trends and Controversies. Marti A. Hearst and Haym Hirsh, Editors. IEEE Intelligent Systems (January/February 2000). A timely and thought provoking collection of views from AI scholars and practitioners. "The transition to the next millennium gives us an opportunity to reflect on the past and project the future. In this spirit, we have asked a set of distinguished scholars and practitioners who were involved in AI's formative stages to describe, in just a few paragraphs, the most notable trend or controversy (or nontrend or noncontroversy) during AI's development." (from our AI Overview page) Visit the Humanoid Robotics Group at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory where you can read about Kismet, Cog and their other creations as well as watch exciting video clips, including some showing Kismet's social interactions. (from our Robot page)
Explore a global collection of AI Courses & Academic Departments. (from our Student Resources page) Readings Online Spielberg to Wrap Kubrick Project. BBC News, Wednesday, 15 March, 2000. "Harlan said Kubrick and Spielberg had discussed AI at length before his death, and that Kubrick 'came to realise that Steven would actually be the ideal director for the project'". (from our AI in the news collection) June 14, 2001: A.I. - Igniting the spark of intelligence. By Eric Auchard. Reuters / available from USAToday. Also available from Excite. "Stephen Spielberg's upcoming film Artificial Intelligence is set to renew a long-running, centuries old, debate about mechanical brains and whether they ever may become superior to the human mind. ... Critics say that machines will never actually think in the human sense, only process bewildering amounts of data. Yet, the pace of advances has given naysayers some pause. Debate is stoked by the emergence of powerful tools such as artificial intelligence, bioengineering, and nanotechnology - computers that work at the molecular level. These present both dangers and the potential to transform the human condition." (from our AI in the news collection) The Intelligence Behind AI. The on-again, off-again story of Stanley Kubrick's new vision of thinking machines. By Paula Parisi. WIRED. 5.01 - January 1997. In this article you'll come across this Kubrick quote: "Once a computer learns by experience as well as by its original programming, and once it has access to much more information than any number of human geniuses might possess, the first thing that happens is that you don't really understand it anymore, and you don't know what it's doing or thinking about. You could be tempted to ask yourself in what way is machine intelligence any less sacrosanct than biological intelligence, and it might be difficult to arrive at an answer flattering to biological intelligence." (from our AI in the news Archive#2) Super-Toys Last All Summer Long. By Brian Aldiss. "The inspiration behind Kubrick's ongoing AI project, a tale of humanity and of the aching loneliness in an overpopulated future." Available from WIRED. 5.01 - January 1997. (from our Science Fiction page) #2001HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality. Edited by David G. Stork. (MIT Press, 1996). An exciting collection of essays, many of which are available in full text. And a feature unique to this online version of the book is that the articles offer links to related material on the Web. (from our Speech page)
January 2001: 2001 - A Scorecard: How close are we to building HAL? I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid we can't do that. By Gary Stix. Scientific American. "In any case, Clarke remains undeterred by how far off the mark his vision has strayed. Machine intelligence will become more than science fiction, he believes, if not by the year marked on the cover of this magazine. 'I think it's inevitable; it's just part of the evolutionary process,' he says. Errors in prediction, Clarke maintains, get counterbalanced over time by outcomes more fantastic than the original insight. 'First our expectations of what occurs outrun what's actually happening, and then eventually what actually happens far exceeds our expectations.' Quoting himself (Clarke's third law), Clarke remarks that 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; as technology advances it creates magic, and [AI is] going to be one of them.'" (from our AI in the news collection) January 2001: Computers - Why Hal Never Happened. This is the year that Stanley Kubrick famously imagined. But the truth about computers, it turns out, is far stranger than science fiction By Steven Levy. Newsweek. Available from MSNBC. "Though our computers may not be as in-your-face 'smart' as HAL, we do have artificial intelligence everywhere around us, embodied in countless programs running in garden-variety PCs and servers." (from our AI in the news collection) December 31, 2000: Down To a Science. Experts on space applaud Kubrick's accuracy in '2001'. By Edward Guthmann. SF Gate/SanFrancisco Chronicle. "'One of the things they got right is computer chess,' Stork says. 'In the film, HAL beat Frank (an astronaut portrayed by Gary Lockwood) in a game of chess. In 1997, Deep Blue (a computer chess system) was able to beat (world champion) Garry Kasparov in full tournament play.'" (from our AI in the news collection) Why the future doesn't need us. By Bill Joy. WIRED. 8.04 - April 2000. "From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century." January 24, 2001: Intelligent machines threaten humankind. By Will Knight. ZDNet News. "Science fiction has portrayed machines capable of thinking and acting for themselves with a mixture of anticipation and dread, but what was once the realm of fiction has now become the subject of serious debate for researchers and writers." (from our AI in the news collection) Time for real intelligence? By BBC News Online's Ivan Noble. January 25, 2001: "[C]omputer scientist Professor Juyang Weng, of Michigan State University, US, says it is time to work on systems which 'live' autonomously, have bodies suited to their working environment and learn in a general sense." [See Professor Weng's robot, SAIL, and lots of other resources on our VISION page.] The Age of Robots - We're close to making humanlike machines. It's time to reckon with the promises and perils. By Thomas Hayden. US News & World Report: Cover Story (April 23, 2001). "If visionaries like Asimov may have been wrong about the timing, they were right to predict a bright robotic future. Indeed, robots of various stripes seem to be popping, whirring, buzzing, and gliding up just about everywhere. Very practical-minded bots are at work in the real world right now, exploring distant planets, assisting with precision surgery, and locating deadly land mines." (from our AI in the news collection) Related Web Sites Some pages about A.I.: the movie
Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies: the Alphaville to Zeiramu movie guide. "Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a science, focuses on creating machines that behave in ways humans consider intelligent. The term was first used in 1956 and, after fifty years of research into AI programming techniques, the dream of smart machines is becoming reality. Systems exist that mimic human thought, understand speech, and beat the best chess masters. Military applications are, naturally, classified. Over 30 years after the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, some of the visions of the future of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke no longer seem so implausible." From Nick Johnson at "About.com." (from our Science Fiction page) AAAI Fellows. A list the men and women whose longterm contributions to AI have placed them among this honored group. This could be a good place for you to find a speaker or interviewee in your area. (from our History page) Deep Space 1's REMOTE AGENT. "Known as Remote Agent, the software operated NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft and its futuristic ion engine during two experiments that started on Monday, May 17, 1999. For two days Remote Agent ran on the on-board computer more than 60,000,000 miles (96,500,000 kilometers) from earth. The tests were a step toward robotic explorers of the 21st century that are less costly, more capable and more independent from ground control." The site offers many links for you to explore, including one to How It Works . (from our Astronomy & Space Exploration page) The Robotics Research Group at the University of Texas at Austin offers an exciting collection of educational resources, including ahistory, a timeline, and a glossary. (from our Robots page) Related AI Topics Pages
Now that the movie has been released (first in the theaters and then on video & DVD), here are some of the reviews: 
... and some articles:
ROBOT TRIVIA: According to a New York Times article, the name of Sony's robot dog, AIBO, stands for Artificial Intelligence Robot (in addition to being Japanese for 'companion' or 'pal.'). |
