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, …show more content…
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.
An old adage states that the eyes are the windows to the soul. What if, however, those eyes have a trademark name stamped onto them? William Gibson’s short story "Burning Chrome" depicts an advanced but soulless society where most of the technological advances are portrayed as being perverted by commercialization and human mechanization, rather than dedicated to improving the quality of life. This paper will touch upon the frivolous consumerism of as well as the dehumanizing uses of technology in the world of Automatic Jack, the reader’s companion throughout the story.
In summary, both the article and the novel critique the public’s reliance on technology. This topic is relevant today because Feed because it may be how frightening the future society may look like.
This conflict can be observed in the film Chappie. The idea that technology could reach a point where police officers could be replaced by machines is indicative of the idea of how humans’ behavior and actions can be affected by the technology accessible to them. In this case, the technology is changing human action by removing humans from harm’s way and replacing them with machines. The change in human action as a result of technology brings up the question of whether the new human action is necessarily an improvement. As was seen in the film, the new technologies brought forth the debate of the morality of using such advanced robots. The uncertainty of the merit or value of technology is present in many of the interactions with technology seen in the course. With the changes brought about by technology, there also exists a conservative sentiment that does not see such changes as necessary. This resistance to technology can be seen in Marx, with the push for a return to a pastoral life. One other instance of the way that technology has shaped human behavior is one of the examples presented in lecture. An article spoke of how a statue was being moved as a result of too many people bumping into it because they were texting while walking and thus distracted. This provides an example of
Albert Borgmann follows the general project by Heidegger to see how technology has harmful effects on humanity and to determine how it can be reformed. Borgmann shares Heidegger’s view that modern technology is starkly different from premodern technology in its pattern of disclosing the world to human beings. Borgmann agrees that a sort of ethical reform must be undertaken to limit technological ways of living from dominating the lives of individuals and to keep technology in its place. His proposal for a direction of reform first takes cues from Heidegger but then asserts the need for different tactics.
How do we know that we are human and, if we are human, what does it mean to be human? These two philosophical inquiries are explored in great depth in Ridley Scott's film "Blade Runner", and of course the text of Philip K. Dick's wonderful novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on which the film is based. Most would agree that these themes exist in the novel, but a handful of critics and academics have some doubt as to their presence in the film. If one examines both the film and the text, one will realize that they both serve to support the same motifs, but do so in different fashions. Many critics argue that the awesome visuals overwhelm the contents of the plot and theme, but I argue that the visuals depicting Los Angeles in the year 2019 help to advance the themes. Viewers often miss the human side of the story or lack there of, and may object to the strong visuals for this reason. It can be argued that the visuals serve to portray a dehumanized world where only subtle signs of humanity's existence are dispersed throughout, where existentialist notions such as what being human is and what being human means are not easily answered.
Why is technology a source of erotic thrill? A central motivation is the relationship with power. Technology provides control over power, and, by extension, power over the "Other". After the beginning of the nineteenth century, machines came to be perceived as threatening and uncontrollable entities, and thus made the object of displacement and projection of patriarchal fears towards female sexuality. The physical manifestations of industrial machines, such as size, shape and motions (thrust/pause/press), provided straightforward metaphors for human sexual responses, and the increasingly widespread use of cars made it possible to the large mass of consumers to experience the extension and transformation of the human body through exhilarating blasts of speed and power. The drastic changes in technology have brought a new kind of awareness. As an object of erotic attraction, electronic technology is of a different order from the industrial one exemplified by the car. The masculine power of size and motion has been replaced by the feminized and miniaturized intricacy of electronic circuitry. Re-production has supplanted production and space has become an abstract entity hidden behind the opaque screen of computers and electronic equipments. The more overt sexual connotations of power and strength of industrial machinery has given way to an ambiguous relationship with gender roles and sexual identity. Small size, fluid and quiet functioning computers, which provide the practical possibility to assume on-line personae, invert or blend gender roles. The erotic and exciting feeling experienced with electronic circuitry transgresses the notion of solely body control, in that cybernetics enables control over the information and, for those who own the technology, control over the consumer classes. Donna Haraway's call for a feminist embrace of technology is grounded on the recognition that the technological evocation of feminine metaphors in terms of appearance and functioning does not acknowledge the dangers hidden behind the process of miniaturization: "small is not so much beautiful as pre-eminently dangerous as in cruise missiles" (153).
Posthuman by Nicholas Gane is a comparison of thoughts from selected scholars on the subject of the increasingly complex relationship between mankind and technology and how these technologies are breaking down the barriers that make us human. He starts by introducing us to the history of the concept of the Posthuman, which started with the cybernetic movement of the 1940’s and most influentially the writings of Norbert Wiener. The real popularity of the subject has its roots with Donna Haraways concept of the cyborg. Her concept is a postive rendition of the idea of posthumanism, which focuses on cybernetic technology and genetic modification and how these technologies could radically change humanity. Gane then defines Posthuman as when the
In Postman’s book that our society is redefining what family, religion, education, privacy, and history mean as a result of technology, known as technopoly. He proposes several theories about how our society got to where we currently are;including social, and symbolic traditions, and totalitarian technocracy. Postman compares technology to Thamus’ concern that writing would have an impact on an individual’s wisdom and memory. However, not all technology has been viewed negatively in Postman’s eyes. He has viewed some technologies as blessing to society; including technologies that once were provided as a helpful tool to society; including technologies such as, the printing press and clock. According to Postman, current technology is now considered a totalitarian order on society (Postman, 1992). These technologies brought beneficial aspects to society but did not control s...
In The Matrix, technology dominates society. The push to automate and link the world is a perpetual theme of modern society. As technology rapidly advances, implementation of computer-driven robotic devices and software programming has inundated the world and changed human perspective. There is a cost to pay when redefining the population with AI technology. This cost is identified in Barlett and Byer’s, “Back To The Future: The Humanistic Matrix” “The Matrix metaphorizes our willingness to fantasize that the ‘freedom’ rhetoric of e-capitalism accurately reflects our
Haraway’s cyborg is a blending of both materiality and imagination, pleasure and responsibility, reality and the utopian dream of a world without gender and, maybe, without end. We are all hybrids of machine and organism. The cyborg is our ontology, a creature in a post-gender world with "no origin story in the...
The social construct of humanity is a very delicate and complex piece of art. The creators of this construct are the ever-growing force of technology and its consequences, which manipulate the human race. “Alone Together”, by Sherry Turkle, tackles the authenticity of human interactions by using technology and whether the consequences have debilitated mankind to socialize amongst themselves without technology. As the creators of their destiny, however, humans have a tendency to deconstruct what is before them and in its place create a new world, which holds infinite possibilities. If technology is the architect of human intimacies then humans are the builders of their own universes, and the consequences are not due to the change of technology
As a result, the society of this scary inhumane, Brave New World is full with technology that is destroying humanity form us. Yes it is a perfect world and there no war, disease, crisis but also there is no emotions, feeling, love and especially any hope which are some of the necessary part of human nature. As a conclusion, technology controls the life of everyday people from the day they were born till the day they die in this Brave New World.
Donna Haraway’s essay, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ is an analysis of women and advanced technology in a postmodern world. Haraway uses various illustrations to focus on women’s relation to the technologically scientific world, she uses the metaphor of a cyborg to challenge feminists and engage in a politics beyond naturalism and essentialisms. She also uses the idea of the cyborg to offer a political strategy for the dissimilar interests of socialism and feminism. In her manifesto, Haraway describes a cyborg as a hybrid of machine and organism or a cybernetic organism, created by the advances in technology.
Turkle discusses the impact of technology in human life through the young minds of students that she evidently observed. She further argues that the technology that embeds “in a culture that supports democracy, freedom of expression, tolerance, diversity, and complexity of opinion is one of the next decade’s greatest challenges” (Turkle, 2004). This paper will discuss whether the evocative object (i.e. computer) has helped to find the identity of the users or induced the users to lose their identity. Even though there are negative impacts from the advanced technology, Sherry Turkle proves how technology has changed the way of learning and thinking that helps to find the identity of individuals. Human Relationship with the Computer Computer has made the life easier by providing various applications and technologies.
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher that argues in “The Question Concerning Technology," the essence of technology; especially that modern technology is essentially dangerous. He believes that modern technology forces us to misunderstand the world around us, including ourselves. As a result, modern technology takes away essential purposes such as freedom. This freedom revolves around man’s self-knowledge and truth. Specifically, I will introduce and discuss Heidegger’s argument of modern technology “standing-reserve”. By this, technology is ready to be controlled by humans. In the mean time, this unused technology is thought of as being “on call” until there is a need for its further order.