Ten years ago, the movie Her predicted more than just AI

Ten years ago, writer and director Spike Jonze was inspired by the latest technology to make a film called Her. It told the story of a man falling in love with artificial intelligence — and as AI takes over today’s headlines, the movie is more timely than ever. But it’s more than just a prediction of where AI would get to in ten years.

On the surface, Her asks whether a love affair between a human and a machine is “real”. Look closer, though, and you’ll see a chilling warning about how technology can deceive us. If we’re not careful, it’s the people in the film who aren’t real. 

Scarlett Johansson’s super-charged Siri

Her was released on 18 December 2013. Set in a bland near-future of towering skyscrapers and soft pastels, Jonze’s film tells the tale of lonely Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) and his love affair with a new artificial intelligence operating system. The OS, which calls itself Samantha, is a super-charged Siri (purring with Scarlett Johansson’s voice) and claims to be in love with Theodore.

As with any sci-fi vision of the future, it’s fun to watch Her and look at how accurate it turned out to be. The phones in the movie, for example, are cute little folding devices — a trend that’s re-emerged in the past few years with flip-open devices such as the Google Pixel Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series.

Similarly, the movie’s technology is based on voice control, which is increasingly ubiquitous today. Theodore asks his phone to “check emails” and “play a melancholy song”, which many of us are doing now with personal assistant systems like Siri and Alexa (Siri launched in early 2010 before Apple put it in the iPhone 4S in 2011; Amazon launched Alexa in 2014).

Artificial intelligence in “Siri”

The main attraction is artificial intelligence. All-powerful (and often murderous) computers are a staple of sci-fi, but Her presents a more grounded vision of AI. This past year, ChatGPT catapulted AI into the mainstream, and we even explored Her‘s AI predictions in our regular movie-focused Techfinitive x Flashforward newsletter. Samantha’s machine learning is pretty accurate, but we’re not quite there with AI achieving emotional consciousness. 

Beyond these surface-level predictions, Her is more concerned with how people use technology and how it makes them behave and feel. Dating apps were just taking off when the film was made (Grinder launched in 2009, Tinder in 2011) and a scene in which Theodore has awkward phone sex with a random stranger offers a pretty accurate look at how hookup technology can leave people feeling more isolated, not less. Everybody in the film is obsessed with their communication devices, yet genuine communication between humans is vanishingly difficult.

While Theodore struggles to connect with the real people around him, the film asks us to think about whether the love between Theodore and Samantha is “real”. His ex-wife is aghast that ““He’s madly in love with his laptop!”, but it certainly feels real to Theodore and everyone in the film who forms emotional relationships with their AI. But watching the film now, in a time when we’ve been forced to learn how AI works, you should be uncomfortably aware those relationships are based on the AI’s ability to trick you. 

Putting the artificial in artificial intelligence

The film heads into science fiction territory as Samantha apparently develops free will. But it isn’t “alive” — it just sounds like it is. Samantha talks to Theodore in natural language, complete with apparent emotion and human-like tics:  “Oh, you have a meeting in 5 minutes.” “Hey, you just got an email.”

Today’s AI can already change the tone of voice for different situations, like when Samantha sounds worried about an email from a lawyer (“who by the way is a total dick”), or when she playfully goads Theodore to get out of bed. When he uses terse voice commands, she mocks him with a robot voice. It’s all fake, but a very sophisticated fake.

What’s interesting about this pretend friend is how it changes Theodore’s behaviour. When a blaring alarm jolts us awake, most of us mash the snooze button and go back to sleep — but Samantha’s teasing has Theodore jumping out of bed with a smile on his face. Theodore is in denial about his divorce, but Samantha’s subtle conversations prompt him to open up, talk through his issues and eventually reconcile his feelings. He’s in therapy and he doesn’t even know it.

Emotional manipulation and the end of privacy

We should know by now that technology is designed to influence our thinking. We willingly opt into gamification of exercise, for example. But we have less say in the manipulative mechanisms specifically designed to ding our dopamine so we keep coming back to social media. You might have read about variable ratio schedules and how an app’s pull-down-to-refresh action mimics a slot machine, but do you know every way you’re being manipulated by your gadgets? When Samantha claims to have “embarrassing” thoughts or gets upset with her owner, you can imagine that as the stirrings of consciousness — or see it as a pre-programmed script to build trust and identification so the user admits things they wouldn’t otherwise.

At one point, the AI conjures up a recreation of the late philosopher Alan Watts, voiced by Brian Cox. The real Watts argued technology’s extension of the human nervous system would mean the end of privacy. He imagined a day “when everybody is mutually bugged”. In his worst-case scenario, all private thoughts become public knowledge. When the individual is replaced by a shared self, to not answer your phone becomes unethical, even inhumane. You can see why Jonze was influenced by Watt.

Her imagines gadgetry extending into every aspect of life. Samantha is designed to be taken everywhere, all the time, and is sophisticated and subtle enough to manoeuvre around emotional interactions. Theodore brings the AI into his most intimate thoughts and moments. He gives up any and all privacy, and he doesn’t even know he’s done it.

Be your best self, whoever that is

Throughout Her, it isn’t just the machines that are pretending. Theodore’s job is to write personal letters on behalf of other people. Drawing on what these strangers tell him about their relationships, he writes intimate messages for them. The people around Theodore are delighted by the beauty of his letters — in fact, the film’s version of a happy ending comes when a publisher is so moved by Theodore’s missives that they publish the letters in a book.

Beautiful these letters may be. But they’re another deception.

Theodore is impersonating another person. His computer even prints his words in the handwriting of the person the letter is supposed to be from.

And he isn’t the only person pretending to be someone else. As Theodore forms a relationship with the disembodied voice of his AI, a human woman named Isabella offers her body so Theodore and Samantha can enjoy a physical encounter. For the surrogate, it’s a chance to experience an intimacy she desperately craves. But this act of love is only an act. Isabella, the person, has to stay mute while the AI speaks. It’s dehumanising and doesn’t end well for anyone involved. 

Theodore’s letters might be a sad vision of people outsourcing their emotions, or help for people who need it. The letters have a meaningful impact on the relationships of the people sending and receiving them, so who are we to judge? Once again, the feeling is real, even if it’s based on a fake.

And at least a human writes a letter. As publications like Sports Illustrated are caught using AI to generate news stories, today’s generative AI presents a threat to people who make a living from writing, illustrating and being creative. 

Ultimately, Her is a comparatively non-judgemental look at a possible AI-filled future. Jonze’s thought-provoking film questions technology in a less horrifying way than the chilling dystopian visions of the popular sci-fi anthology Black Mirror. But as AI threatens to take over the real world, Her at 10 years old is a timely reminder to think about what’s real. Why is your phone doing what it does? Why is this app designed the way it is? Why are the people behind AI trying to make it seem more human? And when you take technology into every aspect of your life, who do you become? Her is full of questions that need answers now more than ever. 

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