Summary:

A preliminary version of this text was published in 2001 on the occasion of the film’s premiere. Two decades later and given the explosion of Generative Artificial Intelligence, an expanded version is presented that nevertheless maintains the original thesis. It is about the importance and validity of myths to understand the distance between computational logic and the human condition. Along these lines, Spielberg’s film is analyzed in dialogue with the famous story by Carlo Collodi and with the contributions of psychoanalysis to think about the present and future of Artificial Intelligence.

Key words: Psychoanalysis | childhood | robots | mother-child relationship