In love with a Machine

What would you do if your only company is your computer; and if your computer has an Operation System (OP) that seems to care more about you than the humans around you? Would you fall in love with your OP’s sexy voice (Samantha)? This is the history behind the movie “Her”. The director Spike Jonze leads Joaquin Phoenix (Theodore) through a love relationship with the only “person” who interacts with him on daily basis. Theodore just finished a long relationship with his wife and they are about to sign the divorce papers. One day, he got this update for his OP and he chose a female voice for it (Scarlett Johansson). At the beginning, she helps him on his job as a love-letter writer; but as the time goes she started to interact with him even in his bed. Her voice is the first one he hears in the morning and the last one at night. He also got an earpiece to talk with her every minute of the day. In one scene, while he is at the beach, he is talking with the computer through the earpiece totally isolated to the rest of the world. One day, they have “phone” sex; after that Samantha decided to go far on her wish hiring a real woman to have intimacy with Theodore. Even thought this movie is in the near future, I think this human-machine love relationship is closer than we thought. You can see everywhere youth and adults focused on a little screen in front of them. iPods, iPads, celphone, computers are taking over our interaction with real people. It is funny, but upsetting, to see families eating at a restaurant without talking to each other because all of them are with their eyes focused on their cell phone screen. Sometimes they are also texting each other, because it is easier for them to talk through a machine than to have a real conversation. We need to learn from this movie, if we don’t want a society of isolated people, we need to stop now. We need to get out, interact, talk, spend time with our love ones, make new friends or we are going to end having a love relationship and sex with a machine.