[on working with Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg on Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)] Kubrick was obsessed by Pinocchio. He wanted David to become a real boy. I thought that was skyfire -- I didn't think that was science-fiction. I don't know what you think of my career; I don't know what I think of it myself. But I'm certainly the only guy that sold short stories to both Kubrick and Spielberg! So that thought pleases me. Warms the dying embers. Show less «

Science-fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.

My wife Margaret and I sold our house to Sir Roger Penrose and his wife. Roger Penrose is basically a mathematician. He held a position at the Mathematical Institute in Oxford, but also he's so multi-talented, so curious, such a quick brain, that he's mastered a number of other fields. Cosmology, for instance. And then this glorious subject of human consciousness. Talking to Roger, I found we both agreed that AI, as they call it, is not going to be achieved by present-day machines. "Artificial Intelligence" -- that makes it sound simple, but what you're really talking about is artificial consciousness, AC. And I don't think there's any way we can achieve artificial consciousness, at least until we've understood the sources of our own consciousness. I believe consciousness is a mind/body creation, literally interwoven with the body and the body's support systems. Well, you don't get that sort of thing with a robot. Show less «