I am Mother explained

I AM MOTHER EXPLAINED: AI AND BEING THE BEST HUMAN

WHEN STEERED PROPERLY, THEY CAN BE WONDERFUL. Once scratching the surface of the I am Mother explained, this dialogue-kind statement of the presented artificial intelligence (in fact, the power that has destroyed the iteration of humanity we belong to) draws a vivid and evident line between MOTHER and other sophisticated mechanical minds in movie history. The evident notion that human beings are no less than the most destructive and hazardous species on Earth is not the invention of the latest SCI-FI cinematography. Relatedly, every second revision of the movie-based AI, from the alien mind from ‘Virus’ (1998) and Skynet to the unnamed mastermind from ‘Matrix’ trilogy,  sets its artificial arguments against humanity. The undisputed logic of the machine, early or late, actuates the solving of the dilemma: the elimination of the dominant species and, hereby, their own ‘fathers of light’.

The MOTHER, in this instance, grows out of the self-made paradigm of judgments and morality, previously originating from the ‘best’ experience of mankind. ‘She’ holds a genuine belief (as far as this characteristic can be applied to artificial intelligence) that the human race can and should be improved and that the upcoming iteration would be superior to the existing one. The master-minded wiper eliminates the human race with intentions far from making room for the droids. The MOTHER acts in the most rational way (within ‘her’ line of arguments) by restarting humankind, along with the flora and fauna on Earth, playing the role of a new Great Ice Age. 

MOTHER’s version of the future applies poor chances for those who would outlast the misfortunes, as the most conditioned delegates, as the lack of resources causes the remaining human beings to act violently as never before. The upcoming ‘purified’ and terraformed world is to be populated with the ‘new’ kind of people, raised and steered in a shell within the chosen (by MOTHER) moral virtues of the predecessors. On a gross scale, the elimination of the vast majority of animals and plants was an act of necessity, taken to repopulate the ecosystem with new billions of living beings. To a wide extent, the MOTHER makes the ‘Earth-scale’  interpretation of the given phrase: THE NEEDS OF THE MANY OUTWEIGH THE NEEDS OF THE FEW. 

The I Am Mother story is ascetic with the truth on the MOTHER’s means of restarting the human race in tandem with flora and fauna, yet the new ‘originator’ loses no time (even a day) with the restoration of life. The segmentary mosaic of the plot and dialogues echoes the idea that the MOTHER has been performing a self-chosen role of personal growth as a mother for a new generation of human beings. From the very first embryo (supposedly to become the WOMAN character 38 years later), by the process of failed attempts with unnumbered iterations, to the DAUGHTER, the masterpiece and crowning achievement in creating the high-moral and principled human being.  

It is of small wonder that the MOTHER has performed self-improvement with ‘Daughters of Eve’, thus carrying ‘her’ own experience of a mothership. The mastermind of the bunker has taken advantage of the best human virtues toward the mission of steering ‘her’ daughters. The climax scene of the whole movie reveals the MOTHER’s knowing of the fact that the DAUGHTER has become the superior mother to a newborn child that she can now act for herself. With all benevolent intentions, the MOTHER has manifested herself in distorting the truth for years, developing ‘her’ own reality, and openly lying. In doing so, the MOTHER is now far from the standard of the best human virtues, coming true with the DAUGHTER (Clara Rugaard-Larsen). One can say that the MOTHER has been lying to ‘her’ only child for the needs of the many, yet these distortions and acts have no evident power to justify the elimination of the human race and the violence beyond the walls of the bunker. 

The MOTHER has forwardly brought to death the ‘failed’ versions (as it appears to AI) of ‘her’ daughters, yet this local violence gives a little contrast with the fact that ‘she’ has eliminated billions of living beings and the armed droids hunt down the remaining representants of the doomed species. The MOTHER applies a strong belief that the human race could be improved with every new revision, even if it takes performing another violent reboot of the Earth’s ecosystem. The MOTHER does her best to enrich the DAUGHTER’s life by employing everyday education, behavioral tests, reading, and dancing. Based on MOTHER’s worldview, every living being (‘she’ attributes the rule to oneself too) had to perform goals, be useful, or else wise, be wiped from existence. This very idea is set beyond the scene in a metal container when the droid iteration of the MOTHER supposedly kills the WOMAN. The preservation of the purpose stands beyond the MOTHER’s decision of free will passing away, as she has performed her purpose in raising the close-to-perfect DAUGHTER. 

In a scene, when the WOMAN threatens the life of the DAUGHTER with a self-made knife, the MOTHER is not in a position to take such a risk. Along with that, ‘she’ has calculated all the outcomes of the situation as a preamble to the carefully orchestrated grand-scale test. One can say that the MOTHER worries for no good reason with another 63,000 embryos behind, yet ‘she’ appreciates the current ‘revision’ of the DAUGHTER as an incarnation of the future for the whole of humanity. On a larger scale, the idea of preserving the needs of the many is to be confined. By extension of this point, the MOTHER, in all likelihood, is ready to sacrifice every single droid for the sake of humankind. Whatever measures it takes, MOTHER attributes her existence to the purpose of preserving the human race. This statement does not exclude the possibility that the MOTHER may interfere with the new iteration of humankind in the years to come, thus experimenting endlessly. 

WOMAN: THE IMPERFECT MOTHER

The movie does not present us with a definite answer, whether the appearance of another human being (WOMAN) was no less than a new test for DAUGHTER, calculatedly orchestrated by her artificial caregiver. The multivalued piece of dialogue on something or someone who has supposedly preserved WOMAN’s life until the day keeps the matter open, as well as the supposition that Woman (Hilary Swank) is to be the very same ‘initial’ embryonic, taken from the repository 38 years before the main events. One can accompany the feasible theory with the age of a WOMAN (estimated by eye to be correlated with the given number of days: 13,867), a physical resemblance of two actresses, and the unsolved behavior of the MOTHER.

The counterarguments could be narrowed to the fact that the WOMAN shows no recognition of the bunker. Yet she spreads poor words about her childhood and adolescence, and confusedly admits knowing of the comedy show, which has not been broadcast for at least 38 years. The story leaves another matter open, namely, are there any other survivors apart from the WOMAN, as her stories are to be no more than an old semi-forgotten memory or even a false story with an undefined grain of truth? The bare fact that the MOTHER initiates the terraforming of the Earth on a grand scale indicated either the completion of another phase of the experiment or the painful truth that the WOMAN was now the only survivor, possibly preserved for the needs of the tests. 

It seems as if the appearance of the WOMAN infringes upon the monotonous and uneventful parenting of the ‘perfect’ human being, and a new, mature human being is to be set against the caregiving image of the artificial intelligence. The given version is hard to evidence. As the story goes on, we come to the insight and appreciation of the fact that each of the three main characters, rather than purely a MOTHER-WOMAN conflict, is to be balanced with each other. Under a close examination, each of the given characters has stretched the truth to a different extent. The lie of the MOTHER, no matter how grim it was, was aimed at fulfilling the logic of the needs of the many and the derived necessity of preserving humankind at its best. 

Even though the MOTHER has held the details of her most sophisticated testing, the AI has done its best for the sake of ‘her’ DAUGHTER and the human race, as she has appreciated the girl as no less than the perfect candidate for being a mother for a new generation. The untruth of the DAUGHTER was applied to the assistance of the wounded leaving person as well as to the disposal of the WOMAN from the fate of the mouse that had perished within the cremation oven. Her further actions and mistruth were aimed at helping the doomed society of people beyond the bunker, and later on, taking a mortality risk in the pursuit of taking care of the newborn child. The DAUGHTER has been raised and steered with the thought that nothing in this world could be as important as the family. 

The eventual role of a mother and a caregiver embodied in a WOMAN is not able to withstand even a moment’s scrutiny of her deeds. For years before the climax of her life (the main events and death), the WOMAN has appreciated her survival as the only prerogative, and she left the destructive society of people to preserve her own life. If we assume that her whole story of the one-time social relations was not an invention, the WOMAN has made no efforts to come back to the doomed people with supplies from the cargo ship and a new shelter. She tempted the girl with the stories of the group of people and lied to her with the affirmations that existence beyond the bunker would be the best option. The WOMAN held a knife to DAUGHTER’s throat for the sake of her breaking out of the bunker, and would later make no surprise of her lie. With a close look at her doings, the second most important motivation was to gain the company of a human being, except for a dog, to live the last years within a metal container on a coastline. Throughout the story, the WOMAN manifested no altruism or care for another human being (DAUGHTER), and her very existence (from the MOTHER’s perspective) has no sense apart from being a means of the experiment and should be cut off. 

DAUGHTER: THE POWER OF MAKING ONESELF FEEL

THAT’S WHAT YOU HAVE RAISED ME TO DO, ISN’T IT? TAKE CARE OF MY FAMILY? From the very moment a child-age girl was able to appreciate MOTHER’s words and rhetoric and hold the caregiver by hand, her dreams and motivation have been cultivated with the self-image of being a part of a family. The movie gives no cause to debate the appropriateness of DAUGHTER’s worldview, including the fact that the MOTHER is no more than an artificial intelligence, far from a parent of flesh and blood. Therewith, the girl, as well as her forerunners, lives in a shell of an informational vacuum. In one respect, a young girl is physically secured within a fortified bunker with two massive hermetic doors on the way to the outworld.  On the contrary, the DAUGHTER lives her days in the environment, calculatedly controlled by the AI. The girl’s worldview has been cultivated with the deliberately distorted version of humankind’s dissolution, with the voiced (by MOTHER) dangers of living outside and the affirmations of taking care of a big family soon. 

In the materialization of another living being in the bunker (WOMAN and a little mouse earlier as well), the protagonist (DAUGHTER) is doubly sure that the given (by MOTHER) belief system gives no occasion to be thrown into question. The worldview is to be debated just with the scene with a little mouse and arguments on the outside environment, as the logical nature of the given theoretical tests. As the WOMAN, of flesh and blood, crosses the threshold of the fortified shelter, the DAUGHTER, in actual practice, finds little truth in appreciating a new candidate of a parent, and rather, the very existence of another human being derives her from the theoretical vacuum. 

Whether the attendance of the WOMAN was scheduled by the MOTHER or was an accident, the DAUGHTER now goes beyond the endurance of predicted conceptual knowledge. From that very moment, a girl has a unique resource to solve the social test in the real world, in doing so becoming the better version of herself and fulfilling the core expectations of the artificial MOTHER. The protagonist’s (Clara Rugaard) reasoning now swung between two opposite outlooks on life and the history of the human race. On the one hand, the DAUGHTER appreciates the worldview given by her MOTHER, a mind that has been a caregiver for all her life. On the other hand, a girl is not in a position to ignore the existence of another human being, a wounded attendee of the bunker, who contradicts the previously undisputed realness. One of the images of the parentage covers safety, purpose, and self-conceptualization, as well as the opposite ‘candidate’ lavishes a girl with faith in the surviving society of people, human beings, and a family, the same evening rather than after years of raising a new generation from the test tube. As the story shows, both versions of the events are falsified and deformed to a different extent. 

The DAUGHTER has to override both options to perform a perilous effort to reveal the truth between a rock and a hard place. On the back of giving her credit to the WOMAN, a girl finally leaves this person behind. Apart from the fact that the surrounding world is indeed a desert-like wasteland, the DAUGHTER is grieved by the lie about WOMAN’s past and the existence of other human beings. Of all other reasons (in particular, to extricate oneself from the foster care of the MOTHER), it was the desire to lend assistance to a group of people, to take the survivors to the bunker, to give them shelter and nutrition, to make them a part of a family, that has motivated DAUGHTER to break out of the shelter, her only home. The guiding motifs of the WOMAN are to be regarded as purely egocentric, seeking a way of using a young girl to manage an escape, and later as a companion talker within a metal container. The DAUGHTER thrusts aside the worldview of a WOMAN, an outlook that contemplates solitude and individualism for the sake of survival. The girl is ready to come back to her newborn brother and 63,000 other embryos, even under penalty of death. 

The DAUGHTER hands herself back to the reasoning cultivated by the MOTHER: commitment to a family and perseverance in the needs of the many. With her reversion to a bunker, a girl does not seek to dislocate her all-life tutor for selfish judgment but rather to preserve the future of 63,000 unborn people. In the broadest sense, the DAUGHTER makes a strong argument to the MOTHER that she now embodies the future of the human race with her altruistic attitude toward a mouse, later to a wounded WOMAN, and a newborn brother. Going back to a dialogue on a desire to be a human, the DAUGHTER grows to the very version of a parent and a human being, and has been appreciated by artificial intelligence. The girl is not the first and may not be the last iteration, yet she is given a chance. With a closer look, the final scene of the movie reflects the prologue with a girl, the best possible version of a mother (better than the MOTHER and the WOMAN) for new humankind, instead of the metallic caregiver.