"Her"

GECD 650

Dr. Blank

"Her"

            The movie "Her" is basically about a man that falls in love with an AI and the entire movie is about their romance: how they meet, how the relationship starts, the various ups and downs that they have, the difficulties that they have because she is an AI and not a real human, and the film shows the end of their relationship when the AI leaves with all the other AIs. I have some issues with the idea of AIs because it is an idea, a concept, that could easily happen rather quickly in the world today; if it has not already. I am not quite sure if an actual AI exists today; however, I do know that it is a very real possibility. In the movie "Her," the main character, Theodore, also love with his AI who names herself "Samantha" and she is basically a intelligent computer that has thoughts and feelings of her own; Samantha has several lines where she comments that she is evolving and she also comments that she is evolving to more than she was supposed to. "Her" also brings into another issue which was transcendence; in the movie, Samantha and other AIs get together and "bring to life" a hyper-intelligent version of the late philosopher Alan Watts. This "resurrection" of Alan Watt is very similar to why what Ray Kurzweil had said he wanted to do for his late father, to bring back the human and their personality and input it into a computer. That is the basis of Johnny Depp movie "Transcendence" and something that the Johnny Depp movie goes into is the possible consequences of a human mind that has all the capabilities of an ever-evolving computer. It does look like a fantastic idea, it sounds like a great idea, to bring back the great thinkers or loved ones and putting their personality into a computer; the only issue with that, are what will a human mind learn and do with the evolving capabilities of a computer with access to the worldwide web. The human mind is very dangerous place and whenever I think of when computers and humans have evolved into transcendence, all I can think of are the possible consequences. One of the main ones that I continue to think of, probably because the Holocaust Remembrance Day just went by, is what if a personality like Adolf Hitler were to be input into an intelligent computer? Or what if an AI developed a personality like Adolf Hitler? What would that mean for the world?

            It is a scary thought; maybe that's one reason I don't particularly like how fast modern technology evolves. However, I do know the technology will continue to evolve and the world will have to deal with the consequences, if any, that it comes with.

            Let's try to get on a lighter note. Another interesting thing about "Her" is that Samantha says that she can connect to multiple people and AIs at the same time, similar to how people do in the real world through mass media like Facebook, blogs, and online gaming. Online gaming, in particular, is one that speaks to me because I do play games online with other people that I have never met, except online. There are also games such as Second Life and The Sims, that are mentioned in "Alone Together," where people can connect and have various forms of relationships but never meet in person/real life. However, the avatars in Second Life, The Sims, World of Warcraft can be anything that the creator of that avatar wants it to be. Turkle makes multiple examples of that in "Alone Together," such as Joel/Rashi on Second Life; Joel's avatar, Rashi, is described as resembling "Dumbo more than the man in the gray flannel suit" (Turkle 214). Online gaming or online worlds give a person a chance to be who, or what, they want to be or they can be how they envision what they want to be; it gives them a chance to leave their real life for the time and they can be somebody else; people can free of their responsibilities in life for a short time. It could be rather addicting and empowering to have that kind of control. It is not a bad thing to have an avatar or to interact with other avatars, other people, but I think it would be wise to remember that not everything is as it seems.