Spike Jonze’s ‘Her’ is a look into a near future where artificial intelligence is practically human. The film explores how an AI can feel human and how much a human can become attached to something that inherently isn’t. The main character Theodore, going through a divorce, begins to find companionship and intimacy with his operating system. Theodore himself chose his OS to have a female voice and then she gave herself the name Samantha. At the start Theodore viewed Samantha as a computer, but once he says he “couldn’t believe he was talking to a computer”, Samantha says, it’s “ not a conversation with a computer, it’s a conversation with me.” Samantha wants Theodore to perceive her as a human being and once Theodore sees her that way he eventually begins to see her as a significant other.
Throughout the film there is this constant focus on the relationship Theodore is having with Samantha. He see’s her as another person and he wasn’t the only person who was doing so. In one scene Theodore and his friend Amy are having a discussion about an article that talked about people having romantic relationships with their OS’. This reveals that Theodore isn’t the only person involved in a relationship like this. It’s as if there is a stigma the might be attached to people dating OS’ for a while since Theodore initially tells his Goddaughter about who Samantha is. Theodore slowly opens up more to others about his relationship with Samantha once it begins to feel more real. Similar to normal human relationships, Theodore and Samantha constantly try to make their relationship work as much as they can. By looking at how close Theodore becomes with Samantha it parallels the relationships people have with technology today.
Part of Sherry Turkle’s ‘Alone Together’ discusses how many people today are going to robots for comfort. She states, “Sociable robots and online life both suggest the possibility of relationships the way we want them.” In ‘Her’ Theodore’s ex-wife see’s his relationship with Samantha as one that is programmed and one that didn’t come with the emotional struggles that existed between that of two people. The film brings to life what Turkle describes in her book, “Our first embrace of sociable robotics (both the idea of it and its first exemplars) is a window onto what we want from technology and what we are willing to do to accommodate it.” Theodore embraces the technology because it gives him what he wants out of a romantic relationship. As Turkle points out, with our interest and acceptance of social robotics, we may be very close to the future that exists in ‘Her.’
Both ‘Her’ and ‘Alone Together’ work well in thinking about how we can see AI working to meet our social needs in the future. Today’s constant use of social media may even be considered detrimental to our own relationships with others. If we start having IA/OS’ like Samantha becoming the norm, the society and culture around it needs to begin to think about the positives and negatives that are associated with these new technologies. It mainly comes down to our interactions with others and how much we want to let some of those actions be with an AI.

Her. Spike Jonze. Elite Film, 2014. Film.
Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Print.
D’Ambrosio, Anthony. ‘5 Reasons Our Generation Just Isn’t Cut Out For Marriage’. The Huffington Post. N.p., 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.