A definite theme throughout Artificial Intelligence was the subtle relationship between Mechas and Orgas, putting the Orgas as almost the God to the Mechas' Adam. This was alluded to in the rest of the exchange that the above quote belonged to, and it really speaks to the film as a whole in my opinion. We first see this in the introduction of David to the family. When you think about this, it's actually quite terrible. This family's son is in a coma, and the way the father comes home with David like he's a new puppy to present to Monica is pretty darkly funny. "Here honey, I know our son is a vegetable, but I got you a fancy fake one to fill the void!" The whole nonchalance of this should have immediately tipped the audience off. My initial reaction was that no matter what happens, they will never be able to truly love David, and I feel like this is proved constantly over the next, very long, two-ish hours.
It is portrayed that Mechas are created to fill voids Orgas need, and this is true, but in a completely physical manner. This can be seen through Joe. While his sole purpose is to be a sex worker, he also does not have any emotional duties at all. When the man kills his cheating spouse, he does not seem to give any blame to Joe. I agree with the point made in class that by considering her relationship with Joe an affair, it gives him human qualities, but in an actual affair, the wronged party hardly ignores the mistress like this man did. This Mechas-as-a-crutch theme is further amplified in David. Mechas like him were created to give childless couples what they desired the most, but with no regard for the Mechas at all. The robo-kids would love their "parents" irrevocably, fulfilling the Orgas' maternal instincts. But when the question comes to if the parents will actually love the children back, the response is really an "eh, who cares?".
This seems like a complete paradox. However, this seems like a common occurrence in any movie featuring creating robots to emulate humans. It's confusing to me; the entire purpose of robots is something that are entirely efficient at the thing they are specifically built for, but humans seem obsessed with giving them emotions. Robots are better at what they do because they operate based on logic, without emotions to interfere. Robots' entire purpose is to make life easier for humans, and do things that seem to appear beneath humanity. When we give traits like the ability to love to nonhuman beings, what does this mean about how humans view love? While the focus in Artificial Intelligence seemed to be focused on David and his quest for humanity, I feel like it should be turned back around to the Orgas in this film and their reactions to Mechas. What does it mean about us that we can create things with emotions, simply for our own amusement, and then abandon them?
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