Today we can say Her is a movie of our time, but when it came out (2013), AI as we know it today did not exist. The movie made my mind work overtime, but not because it was an amazing piece of film (it was decent at best), it is more the way it drags in the elephant in the room: can AI replace a relationship with a human being? Well, at the state “AI” is presented in the movie, it’s a given. The concept of “dating an AI” and having an AI as a girlfriend or boyfriend is, for better or worse, a rather popular social phenomenon.

OK, so what about AI at its current state? Well, I guess it depends on who you’re asking. And since you’re asking me, you’d better strap in. I’m going to start with a few strong opinions, and If you want a movie review or a recap, this is not it. If you’re here for the opinions, you might want to watch the movie first, but you don’t have to.

I’m of the opinion that sex is an impulse, maybe even an instinct. It’s a biological need that we have as primates. We’re influenced by sex everywhere, all the time, even if it’s nuanced and unconscious. It acts as a social magnet: both as attraction and rejection, shaping much of what we do, how we act, and how we perceive each other. Sex is also mostly physical. It’s what we see, smell, touch, hear, but not much beyond that. And, importantly, as a need, it has quantity - it can be satisfied. In that aspect, sex is like having a meal: after we have had our fill we feel full, and we don’t usually need more.

Love, on the other hand, is complicated. And I mean it literally: love is a complication revolving around something. When we love someone or something, we are not talking about the immediate existing reality, but also, if not mostly, what we make up ourselves. As such, love is built and based on our memories: some real, some stretched, some completely made up. You know how you love someone for long enough and there’s a moment you ask yourself why you love that person? You realize it’s those little things they do, the same quirks that can drive someone else up a wall. But to you, for some reason, they’re endearing. That’s because you’ve built a meaning around their behavioral patterns (the “quirks”). The patterns exist in reality, but their meaning and interpretation - that’s all you. This is why you can also love each person differently, for different reasons. But, take away this interpretation, the meaning, and you take away the person stops being special: they are just a person. A stranger. This is why I believe Alzheimer’s is so devastating: when someone you love forgets who you are to them, they essentially lose the ability to love you. You alone carry the weight of those memories and, thus, the love for that person. However, you don’t stop loving them because you remember your memories and the meaning of that person is still there.

Indeed, this “finding little things charming complex” doesn’t need to be reciprocated for you to love someone. People have “fallen in love” with celebrities who in turn had no idea the person loving them (the fan) even exists (see for example Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction, a study on attraction toward celebrities, and the interesting case of the “Lonesome Girl” in the 1950s). This phenomenon has only grown stronger with video games (guilty) and sites like OnlyFans during COVID (I don’t have a solid and free study to link to here, but do look it up; these studies exist). The bottom line: you don’t need a reciprocating human being to love said human being. Or for that matter - and here’s where I’m finally getting to it - some thing. It can be anything. If you want to explore this in movie format, Tom Hanks plays it nicely in Cast Away with Wilson. This, in itself, leads to some interesting studies.

So can people be in love with AI for that matter? Absolutely. Is this the kind of relationship you can have with a reciprocating human partner? Of course not. But here we encounter two important limitations in the movie.

For one, the movie has an interesting (and for me, welcoming) take on monogamy and love. Spike Jonze (director and writer of Her) took monogamy as the default for most people when they think about love, and I agree that this is the default for most. As for me, I’m on Samantha’s side - she is capable of loving 641 people at once, and she explains how it’s possible nicely. Remember when I said you love each person differently? I believe that’s part of it. Sure, love comes with the same “butterfly effect” across different people (and objects), but details matter. You can love someone to bits, and it doesn’t change the fact that you can love another for different reasons.

You can disagree, but as a non-monogamous person, that was a “fuck yeah!” moment for me in the movie. I am gratefully experiencing loving connections with several different reciprocating humans (and only humans for now, though my espresso machine does come close sometimes) every day. The notion that love = one and only one person has been false for me for almost two decades, and I’m far from being the only one.

Still, as far as the movie goes, monogamy seems to be a requirement for the kind of love Theodor needs: love in the “traditional” sense, the love that doesn’t develop and move forward the way Samantha’s love does. Love is dynamic. It’s an experience, or rather, a collection of those (memories, remember?) which is similar to what Samantha feels, or I’d say, what Samantha evolved to understand she feels. And yes, since I feel this is going to be the next question, you can love someone and let them go at the same time. It happens all the time. Sometimes it’s even a requirement to keep loving someone, as odd as it may sound. I don’t have kids myself, but I think parents might experience this sort of struggle every day as their kids grow up (feel free to let me know).

Sex is the other limitation in Her. According to the movie, it seems that sex is a requirement for love, and Theodore and Samantha do have sex. Well, first: not true (you can argue it’s a requirement for a “romantic” kind of love, and I’d argue with you there too, but this is becoming an essay I already ran out of coffee for); and second… let’s talk about this for a minute. Adult hats on, please.

I said earlier that sex is mostly a physical need (answered by an orgasm), much like being hungry (answered by food), or tired (answered by sleep), and so on. Sex is a bit unique, since you could satisfy the need for it on your own (masturbation), but I think we can agree that for the most part it’s better with a reciprocating partner. We can probably also agree that a character in an erotic novel or a video game, while not reciprocating, is more rewarding than nothing. So, if we agree here, can we also agree on a spectrum, with masturbation on one end and “a fully reciprocating human being” on the other? And further, can we agree that on that spectrum, sexting is somewhere between masturbation and a reciprocating partner? Alright, so, sex with an AI can probably fit on it somewhere too, probably a bit beyond (“more satisfying” than) masturbation.

Now let’s take this further.

Imagine we have human androids, with silicon skin, soft tissues, and something resembling sexual organs to a sufficient degree to be, essentially, advanced sex toys. If we couple them with AI, which should be better at sexting than half of the humans (an over-simplified statistics: AI is built on samples of human text, including erotica, and it will choose what’s popular and use preferred vocabulary etc, making it a decent (but not great) basic writer), is it so hard to believe someone can be in love with such an Android based on what we said so far? An Android that can make them feel like their feelings and desires are reciprocated? I mean, if we’ve already agreed humans can love volleyballs and can have sex with their own hands, is this so far-fetched? Isn’t this possible?

OK JTR, calm down. Could doesn’t mean should, you say?

Really?

If you had sex androids, the kind that can provide even basic sexual services (glorified and expensive sex toys), which can satisfy the need for sex at least to a degree, isn’t that a good thing, like satisfying other needs? Think, for a moment, about the negativity that happens around the need - the hunger - for sex when it’s satisfied. Think of the suffering. The violence. This destructiveness is based on the fact that sex necessitates, at least to a degree, another human being - a human being who, too often, does not have the same need and wants nothing to do with it. So. Is it so bad to at least have this as an option? Is a sexual android so bad morally, next to, say, a vibrator? or a fleshlight? an erotic novel? a porn film? …Why?

And such sex androids would have additional benefits. No health concerns, for one. They could be used for training (kinks? BDSM?) and for guidance (sex education for adults). You could use them to alleviate depression and rejection issues. You could perhaps reduce human trafficking. Think of it. It could be a good tool, just like AI today could (and often is) a good tool. And like any tool, especially AI today, it can be abused, but that’s beyond the point I’m trying to make here.

The movie Her did not put these thoughts in my head. But it did give me a good reason to talk about these things, and a good medium to do so. You will probably not get the same experience from this movie, but hey, maybe you will. And if you want to talk about it, feel free to email me.