“Her” is an upcoming movie—slotted for release on December 18th—which I stumbled upon earlier today, and it immediately caught my attention. The plot seems ordinary enough with a gentleman (who I believe is) suffering at the loss of his wife and who is in need of a bit of saving from the world as well as himself; however, we quickly find that the key to our protagonist’s salvation lies in his new operating system which is intelligent to the point that it can engage in a social context with him. He quickly becomes attached to the artificial intelligence, named Samantha, and discovers that she has an inquisitive nature about the physical world that he finds compelling and inspiring. I can only imagine that Samantha helps to bring his life back into a state of order, while becoming increasingly knowledgeable of his life, goals, and thoughts on the world. The two appear to “fall in love” and challenge the manner in which we see emotional connection to another.
I find this movie’s premise interesting enough that I would consider going to see it in the theater, as it attempts to explore the boundaries of human and technological relation. Thoughts that the theatrical trailer bring to mind are: “How do you share your life with somebody?” “Can we develop technology that in some way engages us in a social, meaningful relationship?” “Can you love an artificial intelligence?” "What does it mean to be alive?" Anyways, I just thought I would share this for everyone and I hope that you share my interest in this topic insofar as it discusses how technology might be used in the future to help humanity.
(Also, there is this mechanized seal, Paro, that helps to reduce stress levels in people who are in nursing homes and provides them with a means of therapy: click here. I think this is something relative to our discussion of artificial technological/human relations and how they might be increasingly useful in the future.)