Lessons from Her
I recently finally caved after 7 years of avoidance and watched Her, the renowned, bizarre, nearly dystopian masterpiece starring Joaquin Phoenix as an unlucky, lovestruck weirdo whose search for affection is ultimately fulfilled by a Siri-like operating system character, voiced by ScarJo herself. The film was quite creepy for its Black Mirror-like presentation of human interaction with technology.
This film leaves me with no choice but to set forth on a tireless campaign. I now feel compelled to take action to prevent any future Brown student from making the foolish choices of Joaquin and falling in love with your phone, no matter how dismal the prospects around here may be.
Although the movie may not be about Joaquin Phoenix himself, as he is playing a character and it is a fictional movie, his choice in character speaks to a separate alarming trend that cannot be ignored. So, I shall refer to him as Joaquin, and not by his character’s name (Theodore).
First off, I’d like to express concern that Joaquin’s “relationship” is not viewed suspiciously or with much apprehension by his friends and associates. When he publicly professes his love for an OS (operating system, for the non-tech savvy), people appear a bit perplexed, but they voice no protest or disturbance. This is where the film truly went off the rails. If one of my friends described being in love with Siri or Alexa, I would have no choice but to express my disapproval. We must hold each other accountable, people!
Yes, the film is supposed to be satirical and provocative, but there is such a thing as taking things too far! As a collective, we cannot normalize and effectively condone such bizarre behaviors. Once you begin an exclusive and intimate relationship with a literal robot, you’ve embarked on a slippery slope.
We all must agree that it is not the worst thing in the world to be alone for some time. Independence can be quite clarifying. The idea that loneliness is so torturous that love with a non-human computer operating system is a positive alternative is a bit kooky.
Now, if you’ve read this far, you may be thinking to yourself, Why did she just write about this strange film, especially 7 years after its release? It is simply no longer culturally relevant! But I'd argue against this; Her is disturbing because of its growing cultural relevance. With technology advancing at this rate, love between a human and android is not inconceivable, and in fact, on the horizon. Robots' sentience and independent capabilities have crossed into new territory in recent years. Recently, scientists have been forced to create a new Turing test (a test designed by computer scientist Alan Turing to determine if a form of artificial intelligence possesses intelligence indistinguishable from that of a human) because robots' sentience has surpassed previous expectations. You need to look no further than the AI robot Sophia, the world's first robot citizen, to see what the future may hold in terms of crossover between robot and human life.
No matter how cataclysmic the dating scene at Brown may be, I beg that we all steel ourselves against this truly disturbing last resort. The last thing any of us needs on top of everything else is to see each other walking on the main green and sweetly professing our love directly to an iPhone.
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