Spielberg produced this striking movie back in 2001, and I personally love the opening scene where Professor Hobby tries to convince the company’s board to create a robot child for childless couples. He discusses advancements in neural networks and language models, which have become complex enough to perform many tasks, including love.
Professor Hobby asks Sheila, a robot woman, “What is love?” Sheila responds by listing the physiological impacts of love on the body. This shows that in the age of artificial intelligence, where language models interpret concepts in various ways, we need a beacon—a reference point—and that could be philosophy.
disciplines like philosophy and logic will soon return to organize these concepts. What is true love? Does it include altruism? Are we talking about the philosophy of love? In some beliefs, God is seen as true love, and men and women can only see the reflection of his love through each other.
One board member then asks a moral question: if a robot child is made to love humans, can a human love the robot back? Professor Hobby responds by asking, “When God created Adam, did He create Adam to love Him?” This highlights the conundrum of love. Is love to be reciprocated? Didn’t God give Adam ability to exercise his free will to whether love him back or not? Are humans in a similar situation now? If they design robots that can love unconditionally, is it genuine love? or just simulating love?