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American Morning
Exploring the Mystery of the "A.I" Internet Game
Aired July 02, 2001 - 11:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "A.I")
NARRATOR: In a distant future, in an age of intelligent machines, he is the first robotic child programmed to love and coexist as a member of a family. His is a tale of humanity and a journey to find his place among humans and machines.
HALEY JOEL OSMENT, ACTOR: I'm a boy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: That's a clip from the movie that's got everybody talking: Steven Spielberg's new summer blockbuster about robots. It is entitled, "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." And it is apparently building business by using a little real intelligence: a mystery game -- you see here -- on the Internet.
Our James Hattori helps unravel this web of intrigue.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "A.I.")
NARRATOR: In a distant future, in an age of intelligent machines, he is the first robotic child programmed to love.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Based on a 1969 short story, "A.I." is director Steven Spielberg's summer blockbuster about a future world where robots not only think, but feel.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "A.I.")
HALEY JOEL OSMENT, ACTOR: Please make me a real boy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HATTORI: But look closely at the movie trailer, and there are clues to a different story. Notches in words correspond to a phone number, a mysterious woman listed in the movie credits -- clues that lead to dozens of realistic Web pages and a cyberworld where sentient, or intelligent, robots defy their masters. Over the last month and a half, the unfolding web of intrigue has attracted thousands of fans who've discovered this back-story game.
BARRY JOSEPH, "A.I." ENTHUSIAST: As we move through the game, little pieces keep unfolding, and it might come through an e-mail, a piece of it might come through a telephone call.
HATTORI: The online story revolves around the death of a scientist, Evan Chan, who apparently had a fondness for a certain robot.
BROWEA LIGGITT, "A.I." ENTHUSIAST: The robot that may or may not have murdered Evan Chan is a sex 'bot. She is created entirely for the pleasure of her owner.
HATTORI: Fans of the game have even formed loose-knit online groups sharing expertise, identifying cryptic words or phrases.
JOSEPH: Not only know them, but see them out of context and go, ah, this is from that poem in Chaucer and I know that's line 507. If we put these all in order, it's going to give us a phone number to call, and that phone number is going to give us the next piece of the puzzle, the next piece of the story.
HATTORI: Internet strategist Keith Boswell says the game is the most sophisticated attempt yet to promote a film with viral marketing, or electronic word of mouth.
KEITH BOSWELL, INTERNET ANALYST: The goal here is to generate buzz for this movie, which they're doing very effectively. I mean, the fact that we're talking about it and there's been so much coverage given to just the Web site marketing alone.
HATTORI: "A.I"'s makers, Warner Brothers and DreamWorks, have yet to fess up to the P.R. campaign, which has even gone so far as to stage anti-robot rallies at bars in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
LIGGITT: We got there and they made us say a few vaguely hate statements, and then we were allowed to go in. The entire night consisted of puzzles.
HATTORI: Players are reveling in the intrigue.
JOSEPH: This relationship that's developed between us and the puppet masters, knowing that they're watching us, that maybe they're part of the game, maybe I'm one of them, we have no way of knowing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "A.I.")
NARRATOR: His is a tale of humanity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HATTORI: And the intrigue, filmmakers hope, will create a robotic march to the box office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "A.I.")
OSMENT: I am a boy.
WILLIAM HURT, ACTOR: You are a real boy, at least as real as I have ever made one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Sorry, but it's weirding me out a little bit here. But, folks...
ALLISON TOM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And it did that to me, too.
HARRIS: Yes, you, too? I'll bet. No doubt.
Well, Allison Tom is jumping in here to help us figure out where to jump into the Web if you folks want to get out there and find some more stuff like that out there.
TOM: And if you are courageous. We'll take you to the first one.
Here, as we showed you in the piece, the Jeanine Salla here. This is the first clue that tips people off to this game. There, of course, we're concerned who this actual person was. So once you found that name, oftentimes people went to the Internet game or started going to any of a number of Internet search engines. They typed in her name and this is what they found: a listing of all different kinds of Web sites that were connected to her.
And we'll take you to the first one. So this is the picture of her.
HARRIS: OK.
TOM: This is her Web site. And, of course, as you see, it gives you all of the details about her as an individual, the university that she works at. And you find out she works in the Department of Artificial Intelligence. Her specialty is with robot intelligence. But, as you continue to go down -- and I'm going to keep scrolling down here so you can just kind of eyeball it.
HARRIS: OK.
TOM: You will find that the real world aspect of this interactive game is that there is actually a phone number you can leave a message for Dr. Salla. Once you call that number or you e- mail her, she'll either call you back or you get more clues by finding out what's on the information on her voice mail.
HARRIS: OK.
TOM: Now, this page is her family home page. So there is a lot of difficult complicated text pages that come up here, more than several dozens of them. And they all have different clues that are putting this mystery to piece. So, as you can see, there's more of her family history. And it gives you more tips. But, of course, some of this is all connected to the promotion of the game.
HARRIS: But, of course.
TOM: And some of the sites actually gave free promotional special screenings to the premier last week. So that was something to keep in mind. But as you go here, you'll find out more of the details of it. It gets much more specific.
But so many people have tried to find this out that together they have decided that they have to do this. Not one person can figure out this game because it is so complicated. So sites like this one, which is Ain't-It-Cool-News.com, they list all of the very specific Web sites that they have discovered. And they're helping piece this together by just putting all the minds in one place.
HARRIS: Because I'm guessing that each one of them is getting a different piece of information as a clue.
TOM: That's right. That's right.
HARRIS: Got you.
TOM: And some of them, too, you need a little bit more advanced knowledge. Some of them, of course, ask for the chemical -- chemistry elements that you might need from the tables. Some of them also require that you look into the Web browser, into the HTML code to find out what the specific tip of the clue is.
HARRIS: Really?
TOM: And others will require you to actually decipher a certain image by using graphics software. So it's not just something that you can easily do on the Web.
HARRIS: No, you have to be Net savvy to handle this.
TOM: Absolutely.
And this last one, which is cloudmakers.org, they're probably one of the largest groups of people. Thousands of people here have been trying to decipher the code and try to figure out what exactly is happening. They give you a good comprehensive listing of all of the different sites.
So it makes it very easy for people who are just getting into the game to catch up, but also to give them more of the tips and the clues that are helping them. And they also give you here in their "Journey" section on their site some specific tips, so that if you want to find out how to get in on this game, what's real, what's not, it gives you all the good tips starting here.
HARRIS: Boy, if you can just keep it all straight.
TOM: If you can keep it all straight, yes.
(LAUGHTER) TOM: And there's a lot of it to do. So, obviously, it's a very time-consuming game to play.
HARRIS: OK, good deal. Thanks much, Allison Tom, explaining all of that stuff to us. Get out there and start -- I guess, out clicking away, folks, out there on the Web.
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