Why Wall-E is well AImazing, and What it Means to be Alive!

Brian Christian's book The Most Human Human, works to remind us of what it means to live and be alive. Another story which relays a similar same message, is Disney's very own animated film Wall-E. Wall-E is about a lonely little trash robot who was left alone on Earth 700 years ago to clean up all the trash that humans had left behind. The humans had made Earth such a dump that they were forced to build cruise-like spaceships to evacuate Earth because they had made it unable to sustain anymore life. At least they thought. That is until, one day Wall-E finds a plant growing amidst all this garbage and brings it back to his home. A few days later a rocket ship arrives with a cool new bot, and she becomes Wall-E's new friend EVE. Eve and Wall-E get off on a rocky start but they eventually become friends, and this is when EVE shows her the plant and EVE sucks it in and shuts down until her ship arrives to pick her up and Wall-E follows to save her. Now, as cute and heartwarming as the movie is, it does come with a bigger message. See, the cruise-like ships that the humans had fled off on, was actually where EVE was from. Onboard this ship we see the state of mankind 700 years after they fled and man was it UGLY. People sitting on floating lounge chairs, grossly overweight, screens covering their vision. It was bad. These people were lazy, talked only on their computers, and relied on robots for everything, even moving. In Christian's novel he speaks with such determination about how he believes should the age of robots come into the horizon, that humanity wouldn't take it sitting down. However, as we see in Wall-E, apparently we might, maybe even in a red or blue future suit and an XXL carb-loaded milkshake in hand. Wall-E was more human than half the humans were in the movie. Why do I say this? Probably because from what I gathered, and why I think that this classifies as an AI movie, is because Wall-E had evolved far from his original purpose as a trash compactor into an artificial intelligence all on his own. Am I sure of this? No, but in the end of the movie there's a scene, where EVE replaces all of Wall-E's broken parts which included his processor, and we see what he was originally like. He's forgotten EVE and when she shows him all his gadgets he throws them in his compactor, stacks it, and goes out to the piles of garbage and does it all again. This is what he was meant to do, and he doesn't know anything different from it. However, in it's classic Disney ambiance, EVE holds Wall-E's hand and kind of kisses him to say goodbye and voila! Dear old Wall-E is back again! However, it goes to show that Wall-E was at some point, just a robot programmed to do a job, but that somewhere within his 700 years alone, he was able to evolve into an intelligent being. However, the thing that sets Wall-E apart from most A.I.'s is that Wall-E doesn't want to hurt humans, but be like them! Kind of like casper the friendly ghost, but instead Wall-E the friendly AI! Wall-E I would argue, became intelligent because of his fascination with human objects. It's not that much different as Christian's description of himself as a child, curiously pointing at objects trying to learn what they were. Wall-E would categorize things in his little makeshift house trying to group and learn about them. Even more like Christian's description, was the captain. A morbidly obese man, that once finding out about Earth, becomes exhilarated with curiosity! He learns about Earth, dancing, grass, and the sky! All of these things that excite him because his entire life has been spent in a chair, in a ship, in space, with everyone of his needs catered to by a robot. It goes back to Christian's point that our reliance on technology and our way of justifying it can lead down a  dangerous path. While we may want to believe that if technology were to do all the blue collar work it would allow us to unlock more of our human potential, the definitive line of blue collar work is in danger of being unclear to each eye. All this to say, that although Wall-E may be a children's movie with a heartwarming ending and playful storyline. It still has a to say about the path we're heading towards and the dangers that could become a reality. However, it still gives us hope in the end and much like Christian remains optimistic and faithful in humanity captivating us in a light that shows a fighting spirit in the face of defeat. Or as the captain says, "I don't want to just survive. I want to live!" Capturing so well, Christian's warning about not being present, and the difference between living and being alive.