Semi-human situation

David is a robot kid adopted by Monica, a psychologically replacement of her son Martin. When Martian come back to this family, everything changes. There are some delicate interesting scenes in this movie, which indicate the strange relationship between robots and human beings. 

During the dinner, David is trying to get more participation with his family. He is learning the dinner behaviors from his parents, just like a baby repeating the behavior from his parents according to his human instinct. However, because of his robot instinct, David can neither experience the taste of food, nor understand what his parents are doing. He can only watch his parents eating and wonder about this puzzling human behavior. Because his existence, the atmosphere becomes creepy and embarrassing. 

When I see the kids test David's response of pain, it remains me the way that we treat guinea pigs in labs. But in this scene, David's 'defense system' was trigger by the pain unfortunately. He instantly looks for help from Martin. His defense instinct almost lead Martin to drowning.  In the end, Martin is saved, but David is left helplessly on the bottom of the pool.

Unlike the replicants, such as Deckard in Blade Runner, David does not have the all the human instincts. He is in a "semi-human" situation, contributed from his half human instincts and half robot instincts. This is the very source of the problem, which differentiates him from his "family". To me, this is an earlier problem during the artificial intelligence development progress comparing with the "living rights" in Blade Runner. To solve the problem in Blade Runner, the replicants need a revolution. However, in A.I., the problem can be solved through technology by updating the program and adding a fake digestion system et cetera to achieve better participation and coherence in human behaviors. 

Ironically, at the end of this movie, David is not recovered in a human society but in a robot society in order to emphasize the topic about LOVE. I was emotional to see the happy ending for David. However, rationally speaking, it is easier and more moral to reprogram David, so that he can be freed from his love and become a free robot. I mean, he is a robot in a robot society anyway. Thus, when I recall my memory of this movie, I always have the illusion that David is later recovered by human archaeologists in the future and eventually achieve his eternal love. What a bummer!