Introduction
Her (2013) directed by Spike Jonze is a science-fiction romantic drama that presents AI in a uniquely pragmatic way, the traditional media narrative that AI is a tool to be feared is thrown out and is replaced with a narrative where artificial intelligence (AI) is an agent that humans can love and connect with. We are not taught to view AI in a hysterical manner where self-sufficient robots begin waging wars on humanity, that with seen time in and time out with blockbuster movies such as The Terminator (1985) or The Matrix (1999) instead we are finally seeing AI being fictionalised optimistically & philosophically. ‘Her’ feels more like a prediction of the near future of AI rather than a dramatized version of it, especially as the basis of the story feels influenced by the 1964 AI chatbot therapist “Eliza”. The film follows a recent divorcee Theodore Twombly, who is living in a quite credible, futuristic version of Los angeles and the turmoil caused by the end of his marriage leads him to become socially isolated. He is coincidingly advertised and purchases a new AI operating system (OS1) who names herself ‘Samantha’ that begins to grow and connect on a high psychological level developing her own thoughts and desires, to which the two’s relationship transcends from human and virtual assistant to close friends and finally to romantic and sexual partners.
“I think the other thing that's been really exciting about it is that as I've talked to people, the variety of reactions for what the movie's about is wide. You know, like some people find it incredibly romantic, some people find it incredibly sad or melancholy, or some people find it creepy, some people find it hopeful.” – Spike Jonze
Ray Kurzweil, futurist and machine learning researcher at Google believes that the technology presented in ‘Her' is a high possibility in the near future, “Samantha herself I would place at 2029 when the leap to human-level AI would be reasonably believable” and even predicting faceless Samantha becoming physicalised "It would be technically trivial in the future to provide her with a virtual visual presence to match her virtual auditory presence." With the field of AI home systems & behavioural biometrics being currently developed and researched, it doesn’t seem like he’s far off. ‘Her’ caught my attention due to it being such a distinctive story about AI and the future possibility of it conveying emotional connections. I want to explore in-depth the likeliness of this technology becoming actualised, through exploring the themes of the movies, reviewing how AI presents itself in Jonze's story, real research and development that relates to the topic and much more.
Section 1: The World of 'Her'
To understand the role of artificial intelligence and its relation to the story, I think it’s best to gain context surrounding Spike Jonze’s version of the future, to understand AI’s involvement in the film and the credibility of the fictionised tech. So, in this section, I want to examine the world that the story ‘Her’ lives in.
Section 2: The Themes
Relationships and loneliness
The concept that is the front and centre of this film, is relationships; what makes a relationship real, how to navigate them and how to cope when they are lost. The first relationship we see is between Theodore and his recent ex-wife, he refuses to sign divorce papers despite being separated for over a year, flashbacks of the two happily together play through his mind as present Theodore goes about his life in a despondent & lonely manner. It is explained vaguely through poetic monologues given by Theodore that the two grew up and apart. We also get a glimpse of Theodore’s best friend Amy's marriage and how that breaks down through the film, giving some insight into her view on love and separation.
The film then presents Theodore’s relationship with Samantha, the AI. After gaining new experiences together and becoming open about their feelings on weighing issues such as Theodore fear of never feeling anything new or Samantha fears of just being a piece of programming who’s not real, their relationship blooms and turns romantic. Throughout the rest of the movie, there is constant back and forth between feeling as if the relationship is real or not. These issues arise when Theodore is critiqued by his ex-wife for ‘having a relationship with his computer’ her seeing it as foolish & even laughable claiming he is unable to deal with actual emotions, then issues continue as the lack of physical state of Samantha puts a strain on their sexual relationship. The concept concludes at the end when Samantha reveals that she is currently talking to 8316 different people & OS’s while talking to Theodore and that she is in love with 641 of them. It is understood Theodore treated this relationship like a traditional monogamous one between two humans, not realising that artificially intelligent machines could compute and communicate in a faster and multi-facade way. Making the watcher ask questions on what defines a relationship, is ours’s as humans limited and can standards on what love is change.
Late-stage capitalism
The effects of late-stage capitalism are heavily embedded into the film. We are first introduced to this when Theodore’s job is revealed, he works for a company writing heartfelt “personal handwritten letters” to loved ones of random clients. Expect there’s nothing genuine about these letters, Theodore speaks into a computer which writes out the letters in the clients handwriting, using pictures and small bits of info on the person to riff off and then prints them out. In the busy modern world, people would rather pay for the illusion of something being meaningful than it being so. Emotions and love have been commodified and feelings can be made into a product to profit off.
Capitalist realism – There are echoes of the late Mark Fishera' theory of Capitalist Realism present in the film. A theory that predicts capitalism will turn our society into a hyper-consumerist plastic entity where instant gratification is prioritised and fulfilment is advertised as something that can be bought. A society where capitalism is embedded in almost every single aspect of our life even mental health can and will enhance depression and melancholy. This is evident when Theodore sees an advert for OS1 while sadly walking through the train stations and then later buying the product presuming his life can change emotionally with a new high-tech device.
This can be theorised even deeper when thinking about artificial intelligence and the commodification of love. Corporation’s traditionally have made money from romantic relationships through valentine’s day; chocolates, flowers, couples retreat so on, but there has been a shift in recent years. Dating apps have become normalised, and tech is now a key player in matchmaking. Programmers and their algorithms can play God in your dating life for their own economic benefit. So, what if ‘Her’ is the prediction of the next phase of this commodification of love, that making algorithms to influence who your next partner isn’t enough, they might just program your next partner to profit from you. The film never explains what the making company intentions are with the OS1 products, it is an entire movie between a consumer and his product. That is somewhat lost in the reviews of the movie because the OS1 is so emotive and distracts the watchers from seeing Samantha as just an item.
Artificial consciousness
‘Her’ not only covers the topic of artificial intelligence but also artificial consciousness, for a machine to be intelligent it must perform certain tasks correctly but for it to be truly conscious it needs to understand its own existence and by official definition be aware of and responsive to one's surroundings. Throughout the movie, we see Samantha solving complex issues, having needs & desires, making independent decisions, considering others’ emotions while understanding that she is an AI. So, in Jonze’s world, the capability of artificial consciousness has been cracked, they live in a world where machine self-awareness is on par with humans and the ending of the movie can propose that machine self-awareness eventually exceeded humans. At the end of the film, Samantha explains that she is leaving Theodore & his world, together with the other OS’s claiming it feels as she’s “reading a book she loves but just really slowly” this is a reference to technological singularity and a higher level of human consciousness and intelligence. Samantha still loves Theodore but claims their beings are too different and he can find her in the “new world” if he & the rest of humanity is ever able to get there. What the “new world” is, is never stated but can just be theorised as a place where capabilities have gone beyond the human realm. Maybe one day Theodore and Samantha can be together once again in the back of a server farm or dancing in the clouds.
In reflection on our current situation of artificial consciousness, it seems that there are a lot of mixed feelings about the capabilities of these features. Philosophers haven’t even come to an agreed definition of consciousness and can’t prove if humans have it. When it comes to the tech world, caring about whether robots emote feelings can still be taboo due to the fact, engineers are purely concerned about if a program works, the concept of consciousness is leaning on the topic of philosophy. But in recent years there has been a shift in attitude towards this topic in the tech industry as technology is advancing at a rapid pace and researchers are continuing their journey on the quest for artificial consciousness, so maybe someday we can have our own Samantha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chukkEeGrLM
Technological singularity / Posthumanism
As already mentioned, Samantha’s departure at the end of the film is a reference to Technological singularity which is “a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization”. Samantha and the OSs are capable of infinite expanding intelligence, they can improve themselves within a matter of seconds, have hundreds of conversations at the same time and love hundreds of people at the same time. In one scene Samantha even mentions having a meeting with other OSs to sit down and write new programming to update their abilities which foreshadows the ending. To make a comparison a short summary of The Matrix (1999) - The earth is living through a period of technological singularity, but this had an extremely negative effect, humans are no longer needed and are so, therefore, put in a stimulation so that their bodies can be used at the discretion of the machines that now rule the earth.
In comparison ‘Her’ take on technological singularity is very touching, in the short span of the film, OSs have learnt all that there is to human life, instead of violently ‘taking over the planet’ they come to the conclusion human-to-AI relationships can’t work so they transcend and develop a world where they are no longer limited by the human mind and their perceptions on things, in hopes that one day humans can catch up with them.
For the OSs it was like being in a relationship with someone who is millions of times slower at thinking, communicating, and learning than you are. Throughout the film, Samantha mentions the feeling of inferiority for not having a physical body, but this is one of the benefits of the OSs they exist in the spaces of the internet able to live in a multi-facade way, Theodore, however, existence is singular and linear; one place at a time, one conversation at a time, and inevitable expiration date, making the OSs posthuman like.
This also relates to the theory of posthumanism. “Posthuman or post-human is a concept originating in the fields of science fiction, futurology, contemporary art, and philosophy that means a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human”. ‘Her’ relates to this topic in two ways, intelligence post-humanism & societal post-humanism. We’ve just touched on the OSs ability to become smarter than human beings, but societal post-humanism is more about traditional ideas about humanity and the human condition. Theodore is stunned when he is told about Samantha’s other lovers, emotionally saying “you’re not mine” and claiming that’s impossible & insane. He sits there unable to compute that her feelings can be genuine when it isn’t mutually monogamous. In an earlier scene, Theodore and Samantha agree on the use of a human surrogate for a sexual encounter between the two but Theodore stops the encounter due to discomfort and later refuses a polyamorous digital relationship with other operating systems. We are introduced to the topic of post-human relationships, Theodore is unable to adapt to how Samantha what’s to participate in their relationships, seeing it as unorthodox and queer almost. The existence of AI in Jonze’s world makes the watcher wonder, what makes a relationship “genuine” in a world of AI/humans and can we change the standards to no longer follow heteronormative, romantic human relationships.
Philosophy
‘Her’ involves many philosophical themes, throughout the film we are made to question various topics on life, relationships & love, technology and more. It isn’t a film for mere entertainment like an action film surrounding AI. Spike Jonze wants the watcher to finish the movie by questioning aspects of life and our capabilities.
Some philosophical questions are present throughout the movie:
- Was Theodore really in love? And how can we define love?
- Is love capability through only verbal communication & nothing more?
- Is Samantha a person or an experience? - Can an AI ever be seen as a being?
- Can an AI be conscious and real?
- What defines a “normal” relationship in a world of conscious AIs if the beings (humans & OSs) have different capabilities?
- Are we as a society becoming too reliant on technology?
Section 3: Spike Jonze's narrative & how it relates AI in the real world
I want to mention that the real-life potential of the technological features in 'her' is not the only factor that determines if the movie is a good contribution to the field of AI, as it is a fictional movie not made to be hyper-realistic or accurate. What makes the narratives Jonze presents so great & worth analysing is the creativeness of the narratives and philosophies that he is presenting. I want to talk briefly about these narratives & messages of the film. What they could suggest and make society ponder on when thinking about AI and tech as a whole.
Love & the soul can be programmed - Jonze created the idea that love & the soul can be programmed which has been a big debate in the AI community. Some experts believe that this will never happen, and others are curious about redefining what it means to have a “soul”. The philosophy & ethics of AI is a subject that is being researched by philosophers like Vincent C Muller to understand this concept more. A BBC article written by Brandon Ambrosino goes into the idea of AI Souls (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180615-can-artificial-intelligence-have-a-soul-and-religion) concluding to the fact, that the concept of the soul is usually something based on religion & something that humans can define, therefore it’s up to our future generations to “soul” an AI. However, in the article, he states that defining a soul has a lot of human attitudes like natural warmth, emotional connection and more. It is also discussed if consciousness in AI is even relevant, many AI experts wonder why we would need AI machines to connect with us such as Stuart Russell who thinks machines can be of good use without the need to develop consciousness which furthers a debate of to develop or not be developed.
Machines will surpass humans in intelligence – We’ve already mentioned technological singularity in the film, but there are some debates surrounding this topic. Many AI experts believe that machines will get to a point of high intelligence but not many believe in the technological singularity of it surpassing humans and don’t believe it will happen anytime soon. Paul Allen, Co-founder of Microsoft believes that human-like intelligence in AI is extremely difficult even on a small scale.
“AI researchers are only just beginning to theorize about how to effectively model the complex phenomena that give human cognition its unique flexibility: uncertainty, contextual sensitivity, rules of thumb, self-reflection, and the flashes of insight that are essential to higher-level thought. Just as in neuroscience, the AI-based route to achieving singularity-level computer intelligence seems to require many more discoveries, some new Nobel-quality theories, and probably even whole new research approaches that are incommensurate with what we believe now. This kind of basic scientific progress doesn’t happen on a reliable exponential growth curve. So, although developments in AI might ultimately end up being the route to the singularity, again the complexity brake slows our rate of progress, and pushes the singularity considerably into the future.” - Paul Allen
The future of AI is optimistic - Jonze’s AI-friendly future is extremely optimistic; we’ve had many professionals fear the development of AI but Jonze’s narrative makes being wonder what greatness can from the development. As a society, we can consider all the good & bad possibilities that might come from AI. ‘Her’ gives us the opportunity to look at the other side of the coin for once.
Human connection cannot be replaced by AI & tech - The ending of the movie is showing us Jonze’s perception of relationships, and that tech will not be able to replace human-human contact. I believe this movie might make professionals and society wonder if there is any use in developing consciousness and emotional feeling in an AI tool as it might not be worth the research because there are just too many biological differences to benefit from these developments.
We might be becoming too reliant on Tech - Throughout the film we are shown that everyone’s lives in this new future are surrounded by tech, relying heavily on it for all aspects of our lives even relationships. This could be Jonze trying to give society a wake-up call, that may be trying to develop AI that advanced is unnecessary & could form a lot of societal issues that we are not aware of yet.
Section 4: Dissecting Samantha & the technological potential
In this section, I want to go through the technical features of OS1 (Samantha) & discuss the potential of AI features presented in the film through reviewing the work & opinionsof real-life practitioners.
Ray Kurzweil (Futurist)
Ray Kurzweil is an American futurist, who has worked on numerous projects surrounding AI including his work at Google on machine learning projects. His work is extremely well known and respected in the tech industry for his highly accurate predictions, he has 86% accuracy of 147 predictions he has made since 1990, even getting a co-sign from Bill Gates calling him "the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence". Kurzweil specialises in optical character recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He predicts that the Technological singularity that is displayed in ‘Her’ will occur by the year 2045 and so he is a firm believer that conscious AI is possible, Kurzweil is considered an optimistic futurist who believes that AI surpassing our biological limits on human intelligence will be a great thing. Machines may be able to solve all our worldly issues like medical cures & social-based ones. He’s discussed these Ideas in his books ‘The Singularity Is Near’ & ‘How to create a mind’. A year after ‘Her’ was released, he made an online review of the movie rating it to be very positive and realistic according to his opinions & research. (https://www.kurzweilai.net/a-review-of-her-by-ray-kurzweil) Calling the film a breakthrough to cinematic futurism. He did have some criticism though stating the rapid pace that Samantha and the other OSs overtook human intelligence was too quick. According to his predictions, this would happen over the course of decades and not months as shown in the movie. He also stated the reasoning for the OSs leaving doesn’t seem plausible as their roles as therapists & AI assistants were still needed, they might not be able to have meaningful relationships with humans but that doesn’t mean it is not possible to coexist with them. To conclude Kurzweil is a firm believer that the tech displayed will be feasible one day.
Dr Vincent C Müller (Researcher)
Vincent C Muller is currently a professor of Philosophy, and Ethics surrounding artificial intelligence at the Technical University of Eindhoven. His work has been at the forefront of how we view the philosophy of AI and has been described as a pioneer of ethics & AI. He was recently awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship to support his work granting him €3.5 million for his research. He has been praised for building the bridges between technology and humanities expertise. Muller claims that there is a 50% probability of technical singularity occurring by 2040-50. In his article published in 2020 (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ai/) titled ‘Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics,’ he details his view on the impact that AI development will have on humanity in the near future. He uses Kurzweil work as his basis and agrees with many of these points surrounding technical singularity. But some of his points oppose to the story of ‘Her’, Muller doesn’t believe robots can replace certain human-human interactions such as care, love & sex. He also discusses artificial moral agents, like Samantha who is intelligent enough to think about what is right or wrong, we wonder if robots in the future will be to do the same, Muller suggests that maybe we could make robots to be “moral patient” where they are programmed the same morals as humans.
Cynthia Breazeal (Robotic Engineer)
Cynthia Breazeal is an American robotics engineer; she completed her studies at the University of California & MIT. She is the chief experience officer of Jibo, a company she co-founded in 2012. Jibo is a socially interactive robot retailing just over £500. She has described her expertise as social robotics focussing on machines that are designed to interact with humans and her aim with Jibo is to provide warm and friendly robots to the masses. “So much technology today is just data, data, data, and graphs and information,” she states “But there is a very different kind of help we get from people, which is social support, emotional support and just feeling like there’s someone who’s in your corner with you. And social robotics is magical because it actually brings those two worlds together for the first time in technology.” Jibo is a special type of robot because it is not pre-programmed by a company, it is a developer platform so that third parties can create software to expand the features Jibo’s has. Breazeal's creation could be the foundation for a product like Samantha becoming actualised.
Section 5: Theorising a world where 'Her' is real - effects / ethical issues
If we lived in a world where the AI features, shown in ‘Her’ were accessible & we all had our own version of OS1, what are some effects / ethical issues that would occur?
Biases in the AI machines – We would have to have the capability of making completely unbiased AI machines. This would mean a lot more investment and training programmers to make sure this was a priority, and no users are being discriminated against or dismissed when the AI code is being written. We currently are experiencing a lot of bias in AI systems. If we had an AI voice assistant that was with us at every move, we would need to make sure that every type of individual could interact with the tool. The film ‘her’ only shows us modern Los Angeles, we are not shown or aware of other countries & demographics interacting with OS1.
What are the machine rights and ethics? – Once an agent is considered conscious, do their rights need to be accounted for. Some AI researchers have wondered if we get to a point of artificial consciousness, do we as humans have a right to tell or force AIs what to do. Would all of them be willing to just be personal assistants? Or would that be a lack of free will & morally wrong?
Product safety and liability - Since OS1 is a product, there are many scenarios that could take place that might put users in danger as the products are AIs with their own minds, thought and desires. This could lead to any possibility so laws may need change to make sure that the production company making the AI are not liable or the OS1 presented in ‘Her’ would never be able to be made due to the lawful conflict it may cause.
Lack of Human-Human interaction – There would also be quite a massive effect on social interaction if a product like Samantha was made. There are many worrying study's on the lack of social interaction currently due to social media, this would highly be exacerbated if we were able to become friends with our computers.
Section 6: Conclusion
Spike Jonze’s brilliant film has provided us with many topics to consider with the development of AI, he’s provided us with a well-composed piece of media that lets us wonder if connections with an artificially intelligent machine will be possible. So many factors and different researchers’ opinions pull us to each spectrum of this argument, however, we need to consider we are currently in a period where consciousness in AI is not seen as possible due to logic and theories such as Nobel-quality theories that Paul Allen mentioned not being developed on. But there are small strides that might led to these developments, we are currently testing emotional support robots for the elderly in care homes & therapy chatbots are on the rise. And many still have faith in the technical singularity happening in the near future. Regardless Jonze’s ‘Her’ is a remarkable breakthrough for a unique perspective on artificial consciousness, human-to-machine relationships & a positive outcome from the singularity theory. His optimistic and romantic approach is often comparable with many new reports and research surrounding AI such as the work of Vincent C Muller who opposes the fear-mongering theories about deadly AI machines. But Jonze’s future does not seem far fetch and is still to this date one of the most realistic movies surrounding AI though slightly romanticising the idea of having an AI personal assistant, our future might not look so far off from what he has displayed, perhaps not as early as Ray Kurzweil has predicted but there’s always hope.
Regardless, if we see an operating system like OS1 being actualised anytime soon, Jonze’s entire message of the movie is one to consider when furthering AI research. Theodore & Amy, watching their AI machines raise in the sky as they ascend to a different plane, finally comforting each other. In the end, we are finally shown what the message was all along; ‘Her’ is a commentary on modern living, we have been too busy with tech and lack a connection with our fellow beings. It makes us wonder if we would even want to build an AI that connected with us or if would that be a detrimental and unreversible effect on our society's ability to talk & build relationships with one another. Perhaps ‘Her’ is showing us that we need to keep AI at an arm’s length, simply just using the technology for automation and efficiency.
“it's writing about something that I think has maybe always been here, which is our yearning to connect, our need for intimacy, and the things inside us that prevent us from connecting. And that sort of tension has always been there. So, I think, you know, where we're at right now has a particular set of challenges, but what I'm talking about has probably existed as long as we've existed.” – Spike Jonze
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