draft0 - a shared blog by just some people

There is something that I think most people overlook in the story of the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence. I've watched it more than three times before I realised this.

I realised that Teddy (the toy robot teddy bear imitating emotions, called a "supertoy") displayed the exact same signs of actual intelligence and emotions as David (the surrogate son A.I. invention). When talking about the movie people discuss whether David is actually intelligent and actually feels emotions like a human or whether he (it?) just imitates them. But nobody seems to notice that the same question then has to be asked about Teddy. The main difference between the two is that one is marketed as a toy and one as an artificial human with actual artificial emotions. When you watch the movie and pay attention to teddy you'll notice that he has opinions of his own, will, shows fear, love, intent, ... On the journey with David he behaves just like any other sentient child character.

I believe the technological improvements of David over Teddy are mainly in looks, texture of the skin, speech synthesis and a repertoire of behavioral patterns that are expected of a boy his age. If you believe that David is sentient and can feel based on what you saw in the movie than you should also believe the same about Teddy.