Illustration by Kristian Hammerstad It seems just the right moment to re-release Steven Spielberg’s film AI , on its 25th anniversary. We are all rapidly becoming aware that our lives are being deeply changed by AI already. So how much of this did Spielberg, working closely to the plans he had been bequeathed by Stanley Kubrick, foresee? Rewatching AI (by far the best film opening in cinemas this week) gives a surprising answer: almost nothing related to what is happening now. For AI is more fairy tale than science fiction, more about human childhood than its announced subject. AI began with an eight-page short story, no more than a vignette, “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”, published by Brian Aldiss in 1969. At some point in the future, a young mother spends the day with her awkward little boy, named David, who plays with a robotic toy, Teddy.…