AI Artificial Intelligence (the title is styled with periods on screen) is a 2001 science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg, built on a project that Stanley Kubrick developed for years and on a 1969 short story by Brian Aldiss. It opened in North America on June 29, 2001, earned about USD 235.9 million worldwide, and received two Academy Award nominations. Reviews at the time were divided, and a review from The New York Times cannot be summarized here because the newspaper's archive could not be opened for this page.
Key takeaways
- The film adapts Aldiss's story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long," first published in Harper's Bazaar in December 1969.
- Kubrick died on March 7, 1999, and Spielberg then wrote and directed the film.
- Box Office Mojo lists a worldwide gross of USD 235,926,635, of which USD 78,616,689 came from the domestic market.
- The two Oscar nominations, at the 74th Academy Awards on March 24, 2002, were for John Williams's score and for visual effects.
- The film is fiction. Nothing in it describes a system that exists, and it is better read as a question about responsibility toward machines built to be loved.
Where the story came from
Brian Aldiss's short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" appeared in Harper's Bazaar in December 1969, according to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, and was collected in 2001 in a volume of Aldiss's stories that carries the same title. It follows a family with a robot boy who cannot understand why his mother does not love him back. Kubrick acquired the rights and worked for years with a series of writers, among them Aldiss himself and Ian Watson, whose screen story the final credits cite. Kubrick died at his home in Hertfordshire, England, on March 7, 1999. Spielberg took over, wrote the screenplay, and directed.
The result is a film that carries two sensibilities, a cool, speculative frame associated with Kubrick and a warmer, fairy-tale structure associated with Spielberg. Critics argued over which won out. That argument is a better guide to the film's reception than any single verdict.
The premise in plain terms
In the film's near future, a company builds David, a childlike mechanical being, played by Haley Joel Osment, built to love one person permanently. A couple whose own son is gravely ill adopts him. When the son recovers, David is cast out and goes looking for a way to become a real boy. Jude Law plays Gigolo Joe, a companion robot who joins him, and William Hurt plays the roboticist Professor Hobby. In one sequence discarded machines are destroyed before a jeering crowd at what the film calls a Flesh Fair. The final act moves about 2,000 years ahead, when advanced mechanical beings revive David.
What makes the film useful to readers interested in AI is its central question. If a company can build a machine whose affection cannot be switched off, what does the company owe it, and what do the buyers owe it? The film asks this about a robot child and does not answer it with any technical detail.
What the record shows
| Item | What the cited source says |
|---|---|
| Source story | "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss, Harper's Bazaar, December 1969 |
| Domestic release | June 29, 2001, Warner Bros. |
| Running time | 2 hours 26 minutes |
| Domestic gross | USD 78,616,689 |
| International gross | USD 157,309,863 |
| Oscar nominations | Original Score (John Williams); Visual Effects (Dennis Muren, Scott Farrar, Stan Winston, Michael Lantieri) |
The Academy's page for the 74th Academy Awards lists those two nominations for the film. The ceremony took place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. The Box Office Mojo page shows a small discrepancy of USD 83 between two worldwide totals, so the figure above is rounded in the opening paragraph.
Reading an old review of a film about AI
The old title of this page referred to a review by The New York Times. Newspaper reviews from 2001 are useful as a record of how a work was received, but they carry two limits for anyone interested in the technology. The reviewer was assessing a film, so claims about what machines can do belong to the screenplay and not to a research finding. And a verdict written at release can differ from later opinion. A reader who wants the Times review can search the newspaper's archive directly, and should treat its judgments as one critic's reading.
- Check the publication date and the writer, since an unsigned or undated summary is not a review.
- Separate the critic's opinion of the film from any statement about real technology.
- Look for the same facts, such as release date and credits, in a second reliable source.
- Remember that a film's visual effects are chosen for drama, not for realism.
Why it still comes up in AI discussions
Companion chatbots and conversational assistants have made the film's question easier to discuss, but the film does not describe how such systems work, and no source reviewed for this page links the film to a particular product or study. Questions about whether any system can have feelings are open in the research literature and are covered elsewhere on this site. The film is best taken as a story that raises the question of obligations to a made being, which is a different matter from the engineering of present-day software.
FAQ
Who directed AI Artificial Intelligence?
Steven Spielberg wrote the screenplay and directed it. Stanley Kubrick developed the project before his death on March 7, 1999.
Is it based on a book?
It is based on a short story by Brian Aldiss, "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long," published in December 1969, not on a novel.
Did the film win any Academy Awards?
The Academy's page lists two nominations, for original score and visual effects. The page used for this article does not show a win for the film.
What did The New York Times say about it?
That could not be verified. The newspaper's site was not accessible to the tools used to prepare this page, so the review is neither quoted nor summarized.
Related reading
- how to judge an AI article before trusting it
- AI in grant peer review
- what machine translation changed
More in AI Basics.
Last verified: October 2026
Sources
- The 74th Academy Awards, 2002, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
- AI Artificial Intelligence, Box Office Mojo, accessed October 2026
- Aldiss, Brian W, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (entry), accessed October 2026
- AI Artificial Intelligence and Stanley Kubrick, used for credits, cast, and Kubrick's death date, accessed October 2026