Functionalism Exposed In The Movie 'Her'

The movie Her takes place in a futuristic Los Angeles utopia. During that time, technology has advanced immensely and people have lost their way to be socially active with other human beings. People during that time are more involved with computerized devises like never been before. It has gotten to a point where the natural state of physical conversations has become taboo for the human race. In the movie Her, we have a character that goes by the name Theodore. He is a perfect example of how people have become socially awkward over time. In Theodore’s case, he recently had a really tough split with his childhood sweetheart and has delayed to file the divorce papers since he does not want to move on with his life. After not having any conversations

Although she still has the same capabilities as a regular computerized system, because she a specific output for an input, she knows what she is. Samantha understands that she is a computer and does not attempt to deny it. This character relates back to functionalism learned in Chapter 4. Due to Samantha’s capability to carry out computations similar like the way a human can, shows how Samantha follows strict rules programed by her creators. What makes Samantha unique is the great magnitude of possible responses she has to one single human statement. This form of technology can be found today. Many smart phones have AI technology. The operating system on our phones is highly developed, but not as developed as Samantha. The operating system on smart phones are meant to register what we say or ask, formulate a proper response, and respond to the most similar way a human would respond to a human. For example, if you were to ask your smart phone to call your best friend, it would immediately go into your contact list, find the contact that goes by the name “best friend,” and begins to call that person. What makes a program like Samantha unique is the fact that Samantha believes she is conscious. Consciousness is only particularly found in biological organisms. Thus, the fact that Samantha has a conscious is merely impossible since consciousness cannot be programed anywhere due to being something we cannot detect