Film poster. Image” movieposter.com
By: Jay
Artificial Intelligence is the Stanley Kubrick script made into a 2001 film by famed director Steven Spielberg. A modern presentation of
Pinocchio,
the Spielberg/Kubrick A.I. operates on multiple levels as an allegory,
as well as a morality tale of mankind’s potentially disastrous future
given the rise of super advanced technology. Having viewed the film
numerous times since 2001, only now has it become evident how profound
it really is. Fans of esoteric interpretations of film will be aware of
other Kubrick classics such as
2001: A Space Odyssey or
Eyes Wide Shut, but
A.I.
appears to have been overlooked. I recall about a decade ago
getting the idea of doing esoteric film analysis occurred to me when I
read a review of A.I. that argued it was an allegory of Dante’s
Inferno (as David will undergo a
katabasis). A
decade later I still think that element is found, but the real meaning
has yet to be explored in its full depth insofar as the more hidden
aspects of the cryptocracy’s designs with technology have only recently
come to some light.
Transition from Human to Post-Human Era
The film opens to a warning of the catastrophic effects of global
warming and the melting of the polar icecaps that led to the flooding of
major world centers. In the wake of the crisis, the global population
found itself in a resource war for the basic means of survival, with
robotics achieving a primary place due to the miniscule amount of
resources robots require (not needing food, water, etc.). Spielberg
appears to be on board here with the establishment’s grand fear
narrative of Malthusian climate threats, as the hype of carbon emissions
is just now in our day emerging as a massive hoax geared towards total
population control.
Entities
like the Royal Society, the U.N. and thinks tanks like the Club of Rome
have exhausted tremendous wealth and energy towards selling the phony
fear of climate catastrophe, from the failed predictions of Paul
Ehrlich to Al Gore, and in A.I. we see a placement of clear fear-based
propaganda preparing the audience for a dark future of apocalyptic
climate-based scenarios. Regardless, in the fictional future world of
A.I. the revelation of the resource war is shown to be the essence of
the elite technocratic control grid, as we will be entering a transition
period from the human to the post-human.
Dr. Allen Hobby (William Hurt) is shown next giving a lecture where
he presents a new goal for A.I. – to build a robot that can dream.
Oddly,
this is the very thing JC and myself recently explored in articles
dealing with synthetic consciousness lacking the deeper abilities humans
possess to access a subconscious, from which individual aspirations
can arise. Hobby even speaks of creating a machine that can build its
own inner world of symbolic archetypes and metaphors, arising from its
own process of self-individuation. While it might have seemed
far-fetched in 2001, almost a decade and a half later, we are
now seeing top A.I. thinkers plan these very things through entities like DARPA, Google and the work of Ray Kurzweil. As I wrote, the ability to do such work
operates
on an alternate metaphysical system than that presented in mainline
academia and quantitative-dominated physical sciences.
The archon image of David foreshadowing his future race of alien-like A.I.
Thus, at the outset of
A.I., Spielberg is revealing a major
component of the longterm goals of the cryptocracy, to build a
post-human man able to transcend the limits of space and time. If an
A.I. being could be created that was able to form its own inner
psychical world of associations, archetypal forms and meaning, the
bridge from purely algorithmic, determined process might be broken, and
self-conscious volition based on this inner-symbolical world (think
Piaget), resulting in undetermined choice would be the closest point of
contact with human consciousness possible, depending of course on
whether one views human consciousness as purely determined physical
phenomena or intentional, volitional action. In any event, it was
somewhat synchronistic for me as a viewer to watch this for the
tenth time (after a long period of not seeing it) and only then notice
the references to what I had just written about.
Oedipal Eden
David (Haley Joel Osmet) is Prof. Hobby’s first test subject for an
A.I. that can dream, and is given to a company researcher named Henry
Swinton, whose son Martin is in a coma. Henry presents his distraught
wife Monica with David as a temporary replacement, to which Monica
reluctantly concedes. Hearkening to the opening of the film where we see
an elongated figure emerging from a shell with the infinity symbol (the
Cyberronics logo), David appears out of focus with an extended head and
slim body that will form the pattern for the alien-like A.I. at the end
of the film. In similar foreshadowing, Martin, who is frozen in a
cryogenic state surrounded by images of fairy tales on the wall of the
children’s hospital foreshadows the ice water tomb that will encapsulate
David in the third act. This reflexive symbolic foreshadowing is
constant in the film and itself suggests a cyclical view of time and
eternity.
Monica as womb of the gnostic Sophia
The cinematography consistently utilizes circular imagery in almost
every scene, giving the impression of eternality, instability and
constant change. Some scenes even intentionally evoke iconic images from
Kubrick films, such as
Dr. Strangelove. At no point do we as
viewers, or David as the protagonist, feel stable and fixed. We are
immediately propelled on a chaotic adventure where time seems forgotten.
This atemporal aspect harmonizes well with the atemporal setting for
ancient mythology and their more recent versions, fairy tales. A.I. is
thus a post-human, transhumanist technocratic fairy tale. Those versed
in the classics will be aware of the Greek notion of the myths taking
place in a pre-temporal “golden age,” where giants, monsters and gods
roamed freely before a great cataclysm that brought about temporal
reality. In A.I., Spielberg and Kubrick would have us transfer our
thinking to the realm of the mythological and fairy tale, which is also
the realm of the subconscious and the
aether, explaining why the film utilizes a host of images and ideas, from Freud to Jung to
Pinocchio.
Mirrors also appear frequently, as the mirror is emblematic of the
psyche or subconscious, reflecting either the deepest dreams and
intentions of the characters or the shade of Jungian archetypalism. As
David adapts to his new life in the Swinton household, he begins to do
things normal children do, like play hide and seek, but while in this
innocent, Edenic state, David carries a creepy air about him that will
manifest in a “fall” in the third act. Monica, the mother archetype is
shown doing all distinctly human actions, such as eating, cleaning,
cooking, sleeping, and going to the bathroom, contrasted with David’s
futile and failed attempts to be human. At one point David steps over
the line by opening the bathroom door to Monica while she is reading a
book on Freud, cluing us into the sexuality at work: David grows to
become attached to Monica, a Oedipal aspect is clearly shown with the
Freud reference. David is an A.I. version of a child in his so-called
“anal stage,” and Monica is the archetypal mother who now has two beings
contending for her affection – David and Henry. Henry is also never
called “father” in the film, hinting at a completely absent and/or
emasculated masculine component. The only male figure prominent in the
film is Joe, the effeminate sex bot. It is David’s sexually constructed
desires for affection that will lead him on his journey to become
“real” to his mother. The dark mirrored aspect of Monica’s psyche is
evident as she constantly looks into mirrors and even stares at David in
her rear view mirror as she drives away abandoning him. Mirrors are
also copies of things, so we can associate the mirror imaging with the
overpowering simulacrum that dominates the film.
Magical Mind Control Trigger Words
A profoundly kabbalistic idea is shown in regard to the means by
which David’s emotions and self-actualization are “triggered.” Monica
(not Henry) must touch a chakra point (David’s neck) and repeat a series
of magical words to make David’s emotional receptors kick in. Once it’s
done, the process is irreversible, and Henry and Monica even discuss
the possibility of returning David to the company for dissolution should
they find David distasteful. There is at this juncture another
important key to understanding the film, as none of the human characters
are remotely likeable. They almost all evidence purely egoistic and
despicable qualities, especially in the Swinton household, where
everyone operates for their own interests. Monica only wants Martin,
Henry only wants Monica’s affection, and Martin only wants to be rid of
David.
Envy takes primacy as Martin miraculously comes out of his coma and
arrives home to find David in his place. In a striking dialogue between
Martin and David, Martin challenges David to do things he obviously
cannot do, all the more ironic as Martin can barely walk. In Martin’s
mind, David only exists for his own pleasure and amusement, passing off
Teddy, last year’s “supertoy” to David. Teddy is the Jiminey Cricket of
this version of
Pinocchio, and will represent David’s conscience
throughout. Martin passing off Teddy signifies that humanity has, at
this point in history, lost all conscience and become completely
self-absorbed and destructive. Indeed, humanity is to blame for the
climate apocalypse at the opening of the film, and in this microcosmic
scene we are given an image of the fall from the Edenic, golden age
state of bliss to one of utter objectification and masochistic abandon.
As the A.I. become more humanlike and abused, men are more abusive and
exploitive towards one another, in a strange contrast. It is as if
mankind achieved a pinnacle of technological progress, only to do so at
the expense of the loss of all morality and decency, ending in
nihilistic self-destruction. While I do not share the film’s global
warming alarmism, the threat of sacrificing our humanity at the altar of
technocratic progess is very much a warning to be heeded.
David’s alter “imprinting” courtesy of the technocratic panoptic establishment.
However, before we move on to that major theme, Monica’s magic
Cybertronics words must be analyzed. David is programmed to have a
series of vocal frequencies repeated to him that activate his
self-realization and dream-making emotional abilities through the
recitation of his mother alone. This is, as mentioned, a profoundly
kabbalistic and gnostic idea, as well as a more orthodox sentiment, as
the notion of God creating the world from His Logos, or Word, is found
in many religious texts, not the least of which is John, Chapter 1.
Here, the idea seems to be more in line with kabbalism, as the mother
archetype “imprints” upon David a series of code words that trigger a
personality to come to the fore. The interesting word string is as
follows: Cirrus, Socrates, Particle, Decibel, Hurricane, Dolphin, Tulip,
Monica, David, Monica. The words seem to span an array of topics, from
forces of nature to philosophy. Monica appears as the gnostic Sophia in
my analysis, activating his self-consciousness through divine word,
recalling Genesis 1, where God creates man through a word, yet here the
creation occurs in the new Adam, David, who will be the forefather of a
new race of A.I. beings, with Martin representing the old man, or Adam,
subject to death and decay. In kabbalism, there is the idea that man
can create a golem or artificial being with the right combinations of
words and sounds and material,
and as with E.T., Spielberg is referencing that tradition.
Perhaps the title of the film itself is a kind of bookend on E.T.,
where only two letters used – A.I. and E.T. Extra Terrestrial
Artificial Intelligence could be a mystagogical code for the origins of
advanced artificial technology as channeled from the inter-dimensional
alien “gods.” While this notion may seem far out, there are plenty of
elites
who affirm panspermia, which does include this idea as I detailed in my Prometheus analysis.
Programmed sex slave bots.
The notion of “imprinting” also suggests a possible mind control
reading of the film, as David’s persona comes about through trigger
words.
I have written before on the use of psychological conditioning in the
military industrial entertainment complex, as well as its prevalence in
film. This reading is not outside the realm of possibility, given
that David’s next companion on his journey will be the programmed sex
slave, Gigolo Joe (played by Jude Law). While we know there are
brainwashing programs that involve sex slave programming, assassination
programming, and various other techniques, that A.I. presents both
trigger words and sex slaves seems more than coincidence. Skeptics might
wonder how this connection might be substantiated, but if we reflect,
it’s not hard to make.
In the cult classic
Blade Runner, there is almost the exact same theme as A.I., where persecuted replicants are struggling against man for mere survival.
Blade Runner also
includes the theme of a massive mega corporation that has the ability
to wipe and program the minds of both sex slaves and assassins.
Thus, this multi-tiered level of meaning is not without precedence in
science fiction. Another reason we can draw this association is due to
the close correlation artificial intelligence research and psychology
share. The presuppositions of creating A.I. revolve around understanding
and mapping the human brain and psyche, and the century of research the
establishment has poured into such endeavors intertwines closely with
research into advanced bio-tech. This is why DARPA and Google have such a
close relationship in people like Regina Dugan, formerly of DARPA and
now a high up at Google.
Mapping
the psyche is the key to creating A.I. and we can make a rough parallel
between Cybertronics and Google, as both appear to run the existing
globe from a technocratic standpoint, seeking to install the post-human
era.
Flesh Fair Inferno to Robo-booty Rouge City
As David and Martin continue to butt heads, David gradually begins to
grow aware of the darkness of his world, being tricked on three
occasions by Martin into appearing as a threat. Ironically, David is a
threat, although not consciously, as the A.I. will eventually take over
humanity as it extincts itself. Martin almost foresees this, and knows
that David must be eradicated for his own survival. This is one reason
why the first half of the film is filled with moon symbolism. Moons are
everywhere, from David’s bed to the flesh fair, as Gigolo Joe proclaims
that to reach Dr. Know, they will have to journey toward the moon. The
floating hot air balloon that first captures David, for example, is a
gigantic synthetic moon, which brings him to the Flesh Fair, where
gladiatorial games are displayed for a brutish and rural public to
torture and dismember robots. Spielberg is thus presenting the robots as
the new persecuted race, reminiscent of both the early Christian
persecutions in Rome and the Jews in Nazi Germany.
The Flesh Fair does recall images of Dante’s
Inferno, which marks a high point in the western tradition of the hero undergoing a
katabasis,
or descent into the underworld. From Homer to Vergil to the Bible, the
hero’s descent to the underworld is symbolic of two important elements:
the passage from this life to death and the psyche’s trek from
consciousness to the realm of the unconscious. Both are linked, as the
subconscious is home to our darkest archetypal fears, and death is the
realm which holds us in prison in fear in this life, not knowing what
lies beyond. The lunar symbolism of the first half of the film also
represents the human era as a kind of dark age, as opposed to the
daytime setting for the second half. Speilberg seems to be warning that
the era of man may be “baptized” in a flood of death that will bring the
post-human, leading to a spurious new dawn of transhumanist
singularity. However, in this ominous portrayal, it is not a glorious
utopia where man merges with machines according to the transhumanist
promise, but rather the ultimate dystopia where humans are extinct. We
have seen numerous films, from
Moonraker to
Sky Captain to
2012 to
Elysium to
Interstellar that present the elite escaping to a off world utopia, while the rest of the masses are left to perish in some disaster.
Gladiatorial Inferno Flesh Fair.
In my analysis, this is the ultimate goal of the shadow government,
and I expect this storyline to continue to pop up in pop culture as the
controllers seem to relish in laying out their designs. One final note
should be added concerning the lunar symbolism that fits well with the
theme of mind control, which is the notion of Moonchildren. In my
E.T.
analysis I pointed this out with E.T. and Elliot, and the moon
symbolism and here in A.I. it is evident too, as David is not just a
robot, but a programmed moonchild, which
recalls the occult “Babalon” workings of Jack Parsons and Crowley, seeking to create a homunculus.
While that working was done with the intent of effecting things on the
astral plane, the goal of the technocracy is to transfer such workings
to the material plane, where “mecha” (mechanical beings in the film)
become “orga” (organic beings). It is even mentioned in the film by
Gigolo Joe that orga hate and will be replaced by mecha, and they know
it. Thus the descent from Flesh Fair to Rouge City, a degenerate
liscentious red light district that is entire city is also the source of
Dr. Know, the gnostic embodiment of rational thought.
Dr. Know-sis.
The City at the End of the World and the New Aeon
Dr. Know, a kind of 3D Google, informs Joe and David that “Blue
Fairy,” the enigmatic representation of man and David’s religious quest,
is to be found at the end of the world in Man-hattan. In the midst of
this query, Dr. Know shuts off and becomes a message from Cybertronics
to David. A riddle is given to tell David to come to the end of the
world and seek out Dr. Hobby, playing on the archetypal quest that
motivates David. The interplay between machine and machine is
fascinating here, as both seem incapable of understanding the different
semiotic usages and senses of words, puns and exemplification. Being
overly literal, machines seem unequipped to joke, aside from Gigolo Joe,
who is the “fairy in hand” that will accompany David to
Man-hattan.
As a side note, as David and Joe journey to Man-hattan, what appears to
be a monolith is briefly shown on the New York skyline, as the scene
fades to the World Trade Towers submerged in water. Is this a pre-9/11
reference to the coming destruction? Possibly, as other
Spielberg-associated films like
Gremlins 2 contain a
9/1-like scenario of the nasty batch taking over and destroying a tower and a scene with 9/11 referenced.
Curiously, in this film the towers appear to be visible, so this
connection is more ambiguous. The placement of the monolith, hearkening
to 2001 however, is not. The Dr. Know sequence is also a revelation of
the total panoptic goals of the technocracy, as Dr. Hobby reveals they
had been watching David all along – it was all an experiment to see if
David would seek out his maker. And when David finds Dr. Hobby, the
discovery of a clone factory of Davids throws him into a rage. The
spiraling, eternal cycle of the consideration of copies of copies
interacting with still more synthetic and higher-level copies paints a
bleak vision of a tech-obsessed future.
As
Joe and David and Teddy approach Man-hattan a brief shot of a monolith
is reflected on their copter. Immediately after this, the NYC skyline is
shown with a submerged WTC.
David experiences a kind of “fall” here, where vengeance, hatred,
rage and egoism emerge, throwing him into a fit discovering that Blue
Fairy wasn’t real, and that Dr. Hobby had planned the entire quest as a
sick experiment due to the loss of his own son. David sees that he was a
manufactured being, completely unoriginal, and is a product of the
ultimate consumerism – cloned and produced and consumed children. David
then becomes suicidal, and after dropping towards his watery abyss tomb,
Joe proclaims, ” I AM, I WAS,” which is a take on the famous Name of
God from Exodus 3:14, where God says “I AM that I AM.” In the new world
order of A.I., the
deus ex machina of an emergent technological
deity supplanting humanity is shown, as David becomes the founder of a
new race. It is significant that as the aeons pass while David is
submerged in the underworld, the new A.I. beings search for David in
order to find their founder. We are left to assume that the A.I.
defeated or outlived the humans who self-destructed and became extinct.
Their alien appearance is reminiscent of typical Spielberg alien
productions, giving us a contrast to Kubrick’s
2001.
Post-human era emerges with an iconic scene showing New York destruction prior to 9/11
In
2001, man battles HAL to go to the next level of
evolutionary apotheosis, where here, man loses, and the bots continue
on. Operating in a collective, the borg-like A.I. recreate David’s past
and inform him that every particle of space reflect every other event
that occurred -
a profound Leibnizian concept I have expounded here at length.
It is clear that whoever consulted with Spielberg on A.I. was
undoubtedly very grounded in the establishment’s hidden metaphysics, and
in fact, it was likely the establishment itself, as that relationship
has long been known.
David’s katabasis, or decent to the underworld abyss results in his resurrection,
but we discover humans can only be brought back for one day. David
retains the hair of Monica he cut off, and Monica is brought back for
one day before passing away into sleep. That day is spoken of as a
never-ending day, the day of eternity, in contrast to the night and moon
imagery of the first two acts. Just like Odysseus, Orpheus and Dante,
David must descend to ascend, yet the trek to the depths of depravity in
Rouge City and the ice tomb evokes a left-hand path of reaching
gnosis (Dr. Know) through a dark night, prior to awakening.
Future A.I. archon overlords.
Conclusion: To Starchild and Beyond
While
A.I. is still a cinematic marvel and a film of
unparalleled genius, the ultimate message conveyed is not pretty. It is
at once a warning and an establishment revelation of its materialist and
esoteric credo – that the next aeon is not one that will be marked by
the human. The notion of never-ending aeons is prominent in hermetic and
esoteric teachings, as well as in Hinduism and Sufism, and suggests a
Crowleyan idea of David as the “crowned and conquering child,” a kind of
mecha/orga homunculus who will become the dayspring of a new aeon – one
without humans, in contrast to
2001, where man defeats HAL to
become Starchild. We see trigger codes, sex slaves, and ideas like
passing through the abyss (David’s descent), so these notions are worth
considering. David as a mecha with orga emotions and drives looks to be
the
new Starchild, and mankind will be left to the dustbin of
history. Is David also an image of the programmed sex slaves and
exploited tools of the elite, who are possibly bringing in the new
religious aeon of a transhumanist singularity that will surpass the old
religions of man? It is highly important in numerology that 2001 was the
release date of
A.I., as 2001 is the date chosen for Kubrick’s version of Arthur C. Clarke’s story (Clarke had definite occult associations,
as well as Kubrick being visited by the CIA about his projects as Vivian Kubrick relates). That aspect is more speculative, but in any case,
A.I is definitely a transhumanist fairy tale with a foreboding message.
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