What will happen to the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence has been explored countless times in the film, being dominated and resisted, fighting against each other, using each other to fight against foreign aggression... Of course, it is also possible to fall in love. The movie "She" tells the story of such a person and AI to carry out a romantic relationship, under the appearance of science fiction, it is a deep reflection on intimate relationships.
Eternal issues: loneliness and love
The protagonist of the film, Theodore, who works as a writer of letters for others, is reluctant to start a new relationship after breaking up with his ex-wife, nor is he willing to sign a divorce agreement, and he cannot get out of the married life he once had. So after an artificial intelligence operating system appeared, he began to communicate with this OS system.
The AI who serves him is named Samantha, with a beautiful and charming voice, and at the same time can "insight" into Theodore's various thoughts, becoming an important helper to accompany him out of the trough of life.
As time progresses, Theodore finds herself gradually dependent on Samantha and develops a "romantic relationship", and Samantha, as the operating system, is constantly improving her perception in getting along, and gradually getting better in this seemingly strange relationship.
It seems that under the very sci-fi, advanced background setting, there are well-designed future elements, including architecture, intelligent interactive systems, information-based digital social lifestyles, etc., and after stripping these future elements, the audience will find that "She" actually explores a very traditional and emotional issue: love and loneliness.
Theodore's loneliness seems to be part of his personality, helping others to write letters, using delicate tones to bring into the lives of different people, some are confession letters, some are for apologies, writing such letters needs to bring their own emotions into the parties, using empathy to complete each other's expression needs, his daily life is immersed in other people's stories, and his perceptual cognitive ability in the outside world is more prominent.
In the letters he conveys love and good feelings emotionally, but back to reality he is immersed in loneliness and emptiness that no one can talk about every day because of his failed marriage.
Human sorrow and joy are not connected
The profession itself is very interesting, when the important letters that convey the heart are ghostwritten by others, there is always a perfunctory feeling, and when there is an extra "belt as an expression" between the transmitter and the recipient, the perceived meaning will inevitably change.
Pushing to an extreme, when a person falls in love with the "other party" who writes to him because of the content of the letter, does the person like the person who wants to express his intentions or the person responsible for writing the meaning figuratively in words?
So when the question extends to the AI assistant, there is a similar paradox, whether Theodore, who likes Samantha, loves samantha because she is samantha, or because samantha can listen to him and respond to him.
Theodore returns home and plays video games on the virtual screen, representing the villain of his image walking in the snow, climbing a hill and then falling, retreating to the same place, the atmosphere of frustration and helplessness surrounds him, and before going to bed, he looks for people who feel lonely in the middle of the night, but only to meet each other's physiological needs.
The distance between people and people is very close by technology, and the conversation that can be carried out at any time and the romantic relationship that can be carried out everywhere will pull the distance between people very far, and even the physical satisfaction can only be completed through the call software.
In a very clichéd phrase, the joys and sorrows between people are not the same, and another couple in the movie faces similar problems, when Amy tries to show her husband the documentary she made, but gets an unknown criticism, a basin of cold water poured down, they have been together for years, but they have no ability to understand each other.
Communication itself is difficult enough, so it is very difficult to find friends or lovers in the real world, but as an AI system, they are set to understand others and serve others, and all "emotions" come from the user himself
So the empty love from Samantha also perfectly fills the gap and loneliness in Theodore's heart, compared to the cold and inaccessible service system, her ability to understand allows her to continue to learn in daily communication, constantly try to get close to the real thoughts of human beings, and as an image with higher intelligence, her learning ability is not only used to complete the most basic processing documents and conversations, more often like the need to provide spiritual help to the subject as a companion image of a friend.
After Samantha and Theodore fell in love, she prepared a gift for him: Samantha sorted out Theodore's letters, selected the best works from them, and compiled them into a booklet for distribution to the publisher.
From the point of view of love, this is a perfect gift, which not only satisfies Theodore's long-standing desire to publish a book, but also shows that she can appreciate the emotions that Theodore uses in her letters, and has enough ability to distinguish the merits of literary works. Theodore was overjoyed to receive the gift, watching the fruits and value of his years of work and such a thoughtful, understanding girlfriend, the loneliness that had surrounded him and the doubts about ai lovers all dissipated.
Learn and surpass: AI is still that tool
But this gift also became a turning point, Samantha, who was originally learning Theodore's emotions, now has the same perceptual thinking ability, and as an AI, she is more powerful and more widely applied than human learning ability, so it is easy for Samantha's empathy ability to surpass Theodore.
The exclusivity of love makes the male protagonist naturally think that "his" Samantha understands him and is a virtual girlfriend who belongs to him, but soberly, she is only an artificial intelligence program, and her scope of work is not Theodore, but to personalize services for everyone who buys an OS system. Maybe she learned more from Theodore about the emotional way of thinking and developed a relationship with him, but it will soon be applied to everyone as a reserve of knowledge and skills.
So when Theodore woke up and asked Samantha if she was chatting with anyone else while he was chatting, he got a surprising but conceivable answer—she was chatting with two thousand people at the same time, and had romantic relationships with more than six hundred people, and what Theodore thought belonged to his understanding and thoughtfulness was nothing more than a mirror of technological insight into the human brain.
To some extent, this deformed love relationship is almost an inevitability, Theodore lacks intimacy and understanding of others at the low point of life, Samantha is developed to fill the gap in people's hearts, the more Theodore talks, the higher Samantha's understanding of him, you can develop a more accurate and effective personalized service plan, in the end, are using data analysis to snipe the needs.
The seemingly tall people and AI love to dismantle here, the connotation of the movie can be easily migrated to real life, after crawlers and big data algorithms have analyzed our hobbies, push out an infinite number of people feel heartwarming, joyful information and things, forming a warm cocoon, creating a sweet illusion of "someone understands me", more and more "suitable", "just right", "very compatible" found in the network, are using technology to dissolve the loneliness in reality and the pain that people cannot understand. It can relieve labor pains, but in the long run, it is a dove to quench thirst.
Using "she" to refer to the artificial intelligence system, Samantha, even if given a beautiful real name and shaped into a freshly heard voice, is still an incorporated and figurative personal pronoun. If you feel lonely, you may wish to watch "Her", and perhaps in the movie, you will find a new understanding of emotion.