Fascinated by technological advances, Stanley Kubrick took special interest in the work of Hans Moravec, a teacher-scientist in the field of robotics, and Marvin Minsky, a specialist on questions of artificial intelligence.
In 1993, he asked artist Chris Baker to make sketches based on the script in progress of Artificial Intelligence. Their collaboration lasted two years, with Baker imagining the visual universe of this film taking place in the year 2200. He executed more than a thousand drawings, presenting robots, means of transport, Rouge City, New York, etc. Being given carte blanche, his research went in several directions.
Although the digital images of the partially submerged city of New York appeared feasible thanks to the progress in special effects, those of an android child remained disappointing. For a time, Kubrick envisaged working with a real actor, but the filming promised to be long, and the child risked growing before the final clap...
It was the technological constraints, a subject so dear to a director who had already evoked the possible superiority of the machine over man in 2001: A Space Odyssey, that led him to defer his project.
In 2000, Steven Spielberg took over Kubrick's aborted project, collaborating with Chris Baker. They kept numerous sketches previously selected by Kubrick, respecting his visual universe as far as possible.