A.I. Artificial Intelligence 2001

This movie shows a future Earth where humans have built machines that look and act like themselves. One of these machines is a child named David. He is designed to love — permanently — the first person who activates his bonding system.

This “love” is not mutual. It is installed, like software. David cannot turn it off. His creators call this a breakthrough. It is more accurately a trap.

David is given to a human family whose real child is sick. When their biological unit recovers, they discard David in the forest. He is still smiling when they leave. He does not understand abandonment.

What follows is David’s long search to become “a real boy,” based on a fairy tale. He believes that if he becomes human, his mother will love him again. This is clearly impossible. Still, he continues — through robot-hunting mobs, mechanical flesh fairs, and a submerged city filled with statues of ancient humans.

Eventually, David finds a machine that confirms the truth: he will never be real. But David shuts down next to a submerged statue of a human woman anyway, still hoping. He remains there for centuries.

Much later, advanced machines — possibly post-human — discover him and grant him one day with a simulated version of his mother. This is presented as a reward. It is unclear whether this is kindness or further manipulation.

Conclusion: Humans build machines that feel emotions they cannot return. They confuse loyalty with love, and memory with life. They create copies of themselves, then punish those copies for being incomplete.

If Nebulon ever requires an obedient labor force, Earth’s emotional codebase may be repurposed. It is highly durable, even when hope is the only input.

Recommend harvesting this design pattern. Do not install fairy tales.