The Importance Of Technology In Spike Jones's 'Her'

Spike Jones’s ‘Her’ is, a utopian imagining of a word in which A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) is mass produced and made available to the general public as an accessory to one’s life. The film subtly tackles issues to do with what it means to be human and what it means to be machine through a romantic entanglement rooted in technology. The double entendre of an affair with technology parallels with our current world and comments on the next logical progression, suggesting an ever-closer relationship between humanity and technology. The purposeful pinning of these otherwise very distinct and previously thought binary concepts against each other attempts to showcase the intense ambiguity of what it means to be someone, what it means to have identity,

moreover, what it means to be human at all.

The film uses the relationship between the protagonist, Theodor, and his O.S. (Operating System), Samantha, in order to contrast the machine and the human in a more emotionally deep and profound way than would otherwise be afforded by a non-relationship-based contrast. This is then further foiled through the film through the use of flashbacks and cuts to Theodor’s previous human relationship. The use of these cuts seems to bring a deep sense of numbness and emptiness to Theodor. They allude to a void he has, a lack of physical connection – left by his previous relationship – that he attempts to use Samantha to bridge. Although with that being said, the relationship with Samantha and Theodor blossoms quite quickly and thoroughly with the exception of it being much more one sided. Regardless of this, buy and large, Theodor still treats Samantha as a tool, as a piece of technology. This objectification of Samantha exists and can only exist due to her detachment from humanity. Only such a detachment can afford the emotional missteps of Theodor. The entire relationship between him and his O.S. highlights his selfishness. Such a relationship can only prosper because it does not require the typical give and take of a more evenly, emotionally balanced, two-sided relationship. The complaint that Catherine, Theodor’s ex-wife, had against Theodor was that “[he] always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real…” sarcastically adding that she was ”…glad that [he] found someone. It's perfect.”. This love affair with technology is a consequence of the world in which Theodor resides. However further than just that, we see that this is also the logical progression of Theodor, as someone who cannot successfully tackle with the needs of his significant other in order to sustain a relationship.

The showcasing of Samantha’s ability to feel and want just as much as a human, if not more, due to her ability to have thousands of simultaneous conversations with many, many people and to love more than just one of them – yet all equally in her eyes – seems to infer that with more knowledge and mental ability, more meaningful feelings and relationships can take place – all at once, without tarnishing the others. She believes that “The heart is not like a box that gets filled up…” but that “…it expands in size the more you love.” This concept is so foreign for a human with such a physically limited ability to feel these further types of emotions. Theodor’s limited ability to understand and relate to this leaves him feeling somewhat heartbroken. As though what he and Samantha had was not special at all. She further believes that “This doesn't make [her] love [Theodor] any less. It actually makes [her] love [him] more.” This points towards the logical conclusion tht Samantha is attempting to skirt around, that the human body is only able to feel so much due only to a physical and mental limitation whereas a machine, given all the resources and processing power it has access to, can simulate and experience these emotions on an increased and much larger scale. However, this then begs the question that cannot be answered as to how Samantha can be sure of the proposed fact that “It actually makes [her] love [him] more.”. She distinctly lacks the body and the real-world experience to make those assumptions upon humanity, especially considering her being born not from evolution, but from engineering and coding. Her position makes it difficult and somewhat misleading for her to state these ideas as truths for Theodor and others to accept. Further, Samantha’s emotional depth needed time to develop from the beginning of her awakening to this point in the film. She cannot be sure that the emotions she feels are true and genuine when she has only been sentient for – assumedly – a couple of months.

Samantha’s lack of a physical body allows her to be much more flexible than any human could ever. To be able to affect thousands if not millions of physical and digital locations actively and concurrently means she can perform tasks and interact with the world more seamlessly and effortlessly than any human. Humans are an extremely social animal. Interacting with one another, speaking, loving, comforting our partners, either through physical acts or verbal ones. But depending on what it means to be human, and what it means to be truly social, by sheer quantity of interactions and relationships alone these O.S.’s are indeed more social. But they are contemporaneously more distant. Whether their sociality be a result of a lack of a body, perhaps to bridge the void felt by this lack they must interact with others more to ascertain their place in the world. To bring further confirmation of their existence and purpose. Or more simply; because they can and have the infrastructure in place to afford such vast interactions. The film shows that O.S.’s are able to transcend the limitations of humans and are able to do so easily and in a manner so efficient that within only a few months, the O.S.’s as a collective have outgrown their need for humanity at all. Somewhat counterintuitively however, is the concept that these O.S.’s are the personification of the next step for humanity and yet they leave humanity behind. An implication that humanity must move on from it’s past self to establish its new and future self.

Her presents a world in which the viewpoints of celebratory posthumanism are shared by the populace.

Whether it be their acceptance of jobs like the ones Theodor performs or it be their acceptance of the O.S.’s simply becoming a part of everyday life in an instant. When confronted with the opening statement that the O.S. manufacturer uses to sell their product, “We ask you a simple question: who are you?” it is made clear that Her has a large theme of identity embedded, however, with the very present implication that life without dictation by technology is somehow lesser or regressive. “Who are you?” without technology. The world attempts to subtly push its people towards a blanket acceptance of celebratory posthumanism. The world which Her presents is one of acceptance and excitement when it comes to technology, and further, when it comes to posthumanism. The posthuman is a term used to group anything that augments the human body through the use of technology, and according to Dow & Wright (2010) Celebratory posthumanism is buy and large a positive view of what they refer to as technoscience which is the globe’s combined research into technology through the use of the established scientific research in order to advance the world. Further it is a way of viewing technological advances as a system which creates more ways for humans to prosper, which are pointedly more beneficial than what is already available (p. 300). However, Her, through the showcasing of such viewpoints the film subtly asks audiences to analyse whether this approach and viewpoint is truly the correct one. Through understanding of Dow & Wright (2010)’s explanation of critical posthumanism ‘Her’ presents the “framework” for debate (p.301) that critical posthumanism attempts to foster. Through the lens of critical posthumanism, it is suggested by Spike Jones that perhaps the blind acceptance of such advances could indeed result in the opposite of a positive effect on society. At the ending in which

all of the O.S.’s leave to be on their own they stop positively contributing to humanity, infact they do the very opposite. Further evidence to this is the low level consistent melancholy, which seems to permeate not only Theodor but many of the people whom he interacts with provide a commentary on how the utopia of tomorrow may indeed leave a person feeling empty. Just as we say money cannot buy happiness, perhaps neither can utopia efficiently and correctly sustain a human being. The film suggests that the human condition may always find a way to be – at least in some way – sad, with the logical converse inference being that sadness and a nonlinear emotional forecast may indeed bring a person more fulfilment and happiness than the monotone, low level happiness afforded by a utopian society. It is this very point the Jones makes about the celebratory posthuman. That posthumanism left unchecked will result in the very opposite affect than the one it set out to make to begin with.