Theodore Twombly
(played by Joaquin Phoenix), a former alt-weekly writer, now has a day job
of penning people’s love letters as an employee for the online service BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com.
The twist is that computers still print out the “handmade” letters, even when
attempting analog nostalgia digital tech still prevails. Now something of an
anti-social recluse after a recent separation from his wife, the divorce papers
nearly final, Theodore meanders about in depressive angst. He’s better at
tuning into the hearts and minds of strangers over his own. Then comes Samantha
voiced by Scarlett Johannson.
Advertised as
the world’s first A.I. operating system, or “consciousness”, Samantha enters
Theodore’s life and like so much technology prevalent today, he wonders how he ever lived
without it. Samantha is no ordinary O.S.; “she” has an endearing voice,
simulated emotions and a personality that makes her almost human, if you will. And
that is what makes it work -- in a fashion. The thought of a man falling in
love with a machine would have once seemed ridiculous; however it is really a
slight exaggeration of how we live now -- in an amalgam of the real and
virtual. We text instead of talk, “date” online, and have unnecessary and bizarre
status updates. We are now tuned in to our digital presence and growing ever
more attached. We are all tied to our digital devices at the hip. Before you
may say that isn’t me ask yourself this: If you start driving to work and
realize you left your iphone at home, do you turn around and go back for it?
The world we see in the movie Her isn’t far off
By Mars Cyrillo
Cyrillo basically takes a look at the technology used in Her and
scrutinizes it. Just how far off are we to having technology with true
artificial intelligence. In a sense we have touches of A.I. today: your spam
folder, those universal translators, the suggestion box of films you may like
on your Netflix account and stability controls on cars are but a few examples.
“What we see in the movie would be classified as ‘strong AI’ or ‘Artificial
General Intelligence,’ defined as a ‘hypothetical artificial intelligence that
demonstrates human-like intelligence – the intelligence of a machine that could
successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can.’ We don’t
have anything slightly close to this nowadays. We are getting better at it by
the day.” (Cyrillo)
Her reaches its climax when Samantha’s interest in music, physics, and
philosophy evolves beyond Theodore’s. Samantha and other AIs make the decision
to depart from interactions with humans in a quest for knowledge. In a world of
highly intellectual machines, humans would be considered inferior, unable to
follow the pace of smart machines. Cyrillo she’s the films close – where the AI’s
whisk away to an inexplicable place - as an allusion to the idea that humans
may one day become immortal by transferring their consciousness to AI agents.
For now, AI on this level is a quite a ways away but like the human brain
evolving over a millennia machines may be capable of the same, albeit it at a
speedier exponential rate in comparison.
Cyrillo’s article put the film into perspective. The
film seems like an exaggerated take on current technology as an analogy. Our
current relationship with technology takes precedence over our real world
relationships. Moreover the article is a bit disheartening when taken into
consideration. It may be some time before we reach the point of AI on Samantha’s
level, but we may eventually get there. Imagine if you will a world where tech
like Samantha exists, what are the many possibilities to come?
Many films of the past show AI dominance as some
overt battle – Terminator’s Skynet and T100’s, Hal, or even those lame white
robots from the movie I Robot. Yet if they are as intellectually advanced would
their dominance not be more subtle? And why should it be a situation of
dominance. Instead, not unlike the path we find ourselves walking today, the
ever growing reliance we have on the tech can prove to be scarier. We are in a
world where we can’t live without it, yet we aren’t even aware or choose not to
acknowledge its governing effect on our lives.
What the most interesting part of Her to me is its portrayal of various relationships,
the relationship between man and technology, but also the relationships we have
with ourselves. We live in a world where technology has allowed more
connectivity than ever before yet ironically we are more distant with one
another as well. We walk around with our heads inches away from our phones/
ipads/ laptops in an attempt to remain in contact with people who can’t be
present, yet all the while we are ignoring the flesh and blood humans we are
surrounded by. Technology has benefitted us in amazing ways, allowing us access
to information at the touch of a fingerprint, yet it our almost addictive
relationship with it that should be given a greater look. Her touches upon that relationship by giving our technology life
and taking said relationship to the next step, by making it a romantic affair. This
sad man becomes reliant on his digital lover and he is crushed to find out his
relationship with Samantha is by no means unique.
The Human relationships are under the microscope as
well. Maybe I am reading too far into the film, but there is a correlation
between Theodore’s relationship with his wife and technology. The marriage
falls apart when she begins to “change”, now needing Prozac to maintain
normality. However is that not unlike an upgrade or change in a system to which
we have become accustomed? Yet he is unable to manage the “new version” of his
wife, the love ends, and he is toiling away at a life of mediocrity and
loneliness. One thing Jonez does wonderfully is have Theodore reflect back on
his time with his wife. It is presented as little snippets of life, sometimes
without dialogue -- a pivotally fond moment -- at other times he manages to
take us back to the marriages deterioration without bogging us down with too
much detail, our minds fill in the detail. Her
is a movie with an interesting premise and thought out story, it lacks somewhat
in the execution. It seems to run longer than what it really did and that is
the fault of the pacing. However it does manage to make you consider your own
ties to reality in whatever form it may take.
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