Professor Hobby Quotes in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

[the female colleague questions Professor Hobby if it's possible that a human can genuinely love a robot]

Female Colleague: You know, it occurs to me... with all this animus existing against Mecha's today, it isn't simply a question of creating a robot who can love. But isn't the real conundrum, can you get a human to love them back?

Professor Hobby: Ours will be a perfect child caught in a freeze-frame... always loving, never ill, never changing. With all the childless couples yearning in vain for a license, our Mecha will not only open up a completely new market but will fill a great human need.

Female Colleague: But you haven't answered my question. If a robot could genuinely love a person, what responsibility does that person hold toward that Mecha in return? It's a moral question, isn't it?

Professor Hobby: The oldest one of all. But in the beginning, didn't God create Adam to love him?

[Professor Hobby tells David exactly what he was designed to become]

Professor Hobby: Until you were born, robots didn't dream, robots didn't desire unless we told them what to want. David, do you have any idea what a success story you've become? You found a fairy tale... and inspired by love, and fueled by desire, you set on a journey to make her real. And most remarkable of all, no one taught you how. We actually lost you for a while. But when you were found again, we didn't make our presence known because our test was a simple one. Where would your self-motivated reasoning take you? To the logical conclusion... that Blue Fairy is part of the great human flaw to wish for things that don't exist, or to the greatest single human gift - the ability to chase down our dreams. And that is something no machine has ever done before you.

[David finds out the truth about him only being a Mecha boy]

Professor Hobby: David.

David: My brain is falling out.

[Professor Hobby asks Mecha, Secretary Sheila, what is love]

Professor Hobby: Tell me. What is love?

Secretary: Love is first widening my eyes a little bit... and quickening my breathing a little... and warming my skin and touching my...

Professor Hobby: And so on. Exactly so. Thank you, Sheila.

Professor Hobby: [the group claps] But I wasn't referring to sensuality stimulators. The word that I used was 'love.' Love like the love of a child for it's parents. I propose that we build a robot child who can love. A child robot who will genuinely love... the parent, or parents it imprints on... with a love that will never end.

Supernerd: A child-substitute Mecha?

Professor Hobby: But a Mecha with a mind, with neuronal feedback. You see, what I'm suggesting is that love will be the key... by which they acquire a kind of subconscious never before achieved. An inner world of metaphor, intuition, a self-motivated reasoning, of dreams.

[Professor Hobby stabs the Mecha, Secretary Sheila's hand in a demonstration, asking her what she feels]

Professor Hobby: How did that make you feel? Angry? Shocked?

Secretary: I don't understand.

Professor Hobby: What did I do to your feelings?

Secretary: [Secretary Sheila holds up her hand] You did it to my hand.

[Professor Hobby welcomes David back home, knowing that David was searching to find the Blue Fairy]

Professor Hobby: You are a real boy. At least as real as I've ever made one, which by all reasonable accounts... would make me your Blue Fairy.

[David tells Professor Hobby that he thought he was one of a kind]

David: I thought I was one of a kind.

Professor Hobby: [Professor Hobby responds with tears in his eyes] My son was one of a kind. You're the first of a kind.

[Professor Hobby gives a speech about the artificial being of the modern age]

Professor Hobby: To create an artificial being has been the dream of man... since the birth of science. Not merely the beginning of the modern age... when our for-bearers astonished the world with the first thinking machines - Primitive monsters that could play chess.

Professor Hobby: [the group laughs] How far have we come. The artificial being is a reality... of perfect simulacrum... articulated in limb... articulate in speech... and not lacking in human response.