AI was, as far as I know, mostly Speilberg's thing. Its had Speilberg's "spin" to it rather than Kubrick's. And anyway, not to rain on your parade, but I thought it was awful. I mean, c'mon, "please make me a real boy" for like literally 15 minutes straight. Maybe its just the fact that I can't stand that little kid.
No Maeg, I haven't read the book, from what I know it follows the same general premise as the movie, only written by Clarck, right?. I had no real difficulty understanding what he was trying to get across, at least not up until that end bit and perhaps a bit superficially. I think thats its all kind of subjective, but I did ponder it a bit, as well as read some analysis. Its seems to me that it goes from "birth of humanity" to "old age of humanity" and finally death (the white room), and then back to birth in a new and evolved form. The next evolutionary step if you will.
