In her 2015 book Reclaiming Conversation, author Sherry Turkle claims that by continually relying on apps like Siri to perform tasks like locating restaurants or friends, in addition to talking to it, knowing that it will never talk back or raise their voice at their owners as humans do, they are fulfilling a fantasy that the applications care for them. Turkle's recollection of a sixteen-year-old girl who considered having a robot friend, but decided against it, confirms that mindset:
"Relationship-wise, you're not going to be afraid of a robot cheating on you, because it's a robot. It's programmed to stay with you forever. So if someone heard the idea of this and they had past relationships where they'd always been cheated on and left, they're going to decide to go with the robot idea because they know that nothing bad is going to happen from it."
Unfortunately, that girl must not have seen Spike Jonze's film Her (2013), which addresses that very statement. The movie centers on a lonely and divorced man named Theodore Twombly (played by Joaquin Phoenix), who starts a relationship with a personalized Siri-like operating system (nicknamed OS in the film) named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). At first, the two seem like a perfect match made for each other, joking, sharing intimate thoughts about one another, and being the closest Theodore had to a friend in years. However, as the two spend more virtual time with each other, the two begin to emotionally drift apart due to Theodore's work and Samantha's questioning of her existential purpose in the world. She ultimately leaves Theodore to join the other OSes in their journey towards a place beyond space and time, possibly to gain full human consciousness. However, there is a glimmer of hope for Theodore, as evidenced by him composing and sending a reconciliation letter to his ex-wife (played by Rooney Mara, Phoenix's real-life partner) and watching the sunrise with his co-worker Amy (played by Amy Adams), with whom he now has the chance to start a relationship.
The dynamic Theodore has with Samantha reflects humans when they think they can solve their loneliness with a computer, or "simple salvations". The owners can get so swept up by the perceived intimacy they share with their devices that at some point, they "forget what is special about being human" and "what it means to have authentic conversation." In a similar manner to A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), the humans never fully recognize their devices' thoughts and existential needs, until it was too late. However, Her's ending serves as a bittersweet yet hopeful encouragement for people to engage with each other within the moment. At the same time, A.I.'s is a grim warning on a global scale that illustrates what could happen to the human race in the long run if they don't consider broader issues like climate change, their overreliance on machines for their amusement and personal benefits, and their cruelty towards human-like devices once they outlive their usefulness. Humans now have the chance to decide between living in a virtual world or the one outside our doorstep.
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