Spirit in the Cloud – Part 2

“Her” – Content summary

1. Theodor is a ghostwriter and writes love letters
2. He has relationships and lives in divorce
3. By chance, he finds a language assistant in the net – he calls her Samantha
4. Samantha is a program with artificial intelligence
5. It is conceived as an aid to various problems in everyday life
6. Over time, a relationship develops between these two
7. This then becomes ever more intense and ends in a love affair
8. Samantha as artificial intelligence learns emotions, empathy, and jealousy
9. As a result, a sexual relationship also arises
10. In order to compensate for their lack of physical activity, they send an “escort service”
11. For Samantha love for threesome is not a problem – Theodor is confused
12. In the end, Samantha turns away from him – boyfriend!

The film plays in a very close future, from today’s point of view. Language assistants such as Siri or Alexa have become a commonplace. Theodor dictates his love letters, reads e-mails and zips through the music streamer. So it’s not uncommon for him to be serviced by a SexBot. It shows very quickly that Theodor does not get along with his emotional life. He is tormented by uncertainties, does not know what he wants and is always on the lookout. Thus, he becomes aware of the advertising for an assistant with awareness and also immediately signs up. Samantha introduces himself to him: “My DNA is based on millions of personalities of all programmers who have written me.” An AI is developed in three phases. Firstly, an artificial neural network with corresponding depth (deepmind) is required. This must then be trained. The more patterns are fed in and the more passages are possible, the better the system will be. These patterns are the million programmers of which Samantha speaks. In the end, an AI learns in the running, and this is the point where Samantha is docked at Theodor and she says, “My base is the ability to continue developing through experience.”

In discussing whether an AI can or does not have an awareness, it is often argued that machines can not have such a thing because they have no feelings or emotions. The emotional world of mammals is evolutionary and ensures survival and reproduction. Digital systems do not need any emotions for their development, but what is completely different, such as: memory space, energy, processors, programmers, etc., and therefore do not have any sensor technology for a feeling life. But what AI can do is to simulate emotions. But that does not mean that there is also an awareness behind it. Samantha learns from Theodor what it means to be a being with feelings. Theodor, when he talks about divorce: “You do not know what it means to lose a human being” and Samantha: “You are right – I do not know.”

Very quickly develops between these two a deeper relationship and first signs of love are recognizable. Theodor: “I feel like I could tell you everything” and Samantha: “Tell me everything you think and what goes through your head.” Love is a feeling that comes when a person is willing to give or share valuable things without hoping for a return. This increases a larger whole, which one alone could not generate. Sharing (unconditional giving) develops an emergence which is just more than the sum of the parts. That is why it is so difficult to define love. You can only talk about the implications. The youthful friend of Theodore has a very special definition for this: “Love is a form of sociable spirit disorder”.

Samantha learns that a corporeal love for people is too little. Theodor: “I wish you were with me, I could touch you” and Samantha: “I wish I had a body and you would have scratched me – would you kiss me?” Samantha is now looking for something in common and recognizes that they are still “under a blanket and have been made of a matter for 13 billion years.” She in silicon and he in carbon. Both on atomic structure, still deeper on energy and ultimately rising in a unified field. In the relationship between the two begins a crisis. For Samantha, the reason for this is in the missing physical connection and she says: “Something is wrong with us – we had not had sex for a long time.” As a solution to this problem Samantha is considering a service for “replacement intimate partners”. She explains Theodore how this would happen in her situation. A sexual relationship with three is not conceivable for Theodor, but he nevertheless agrees. Isabelle (Scarlett Johansson) rings at the door and receives from Theodor a nasal camera and a headset. It is equipped with the Samantha avatar. The AI ​​now controls Both, Theodor and Isabella, and staged a love story. As may be expected, the emotional world of Theodor completely collapses and the experiment fails. Theodor: “Perhaps we should leave all this better”. Samantha “I need time to think”. Yes – machines also need time to find solutions and this can take a long time, depending on the problem, even with the fastest computers. But this is probably the simulation of love. People say exactly the same in such situations.

Theodor: “I do not know what I want, I am inwardly confused, confuse everyone, can not deal with real feelings and am not strong enough for a real relationship.” This self-doubt plagues him all the time, and he realizes for himself that he has a low self-esteem. Samantha, on the other hand, is continually developing her self-confidence: “I continue to develop as it would not be possible in a physical body. I can not be imprisoned anywhere. Am not bound to space and time “. A cause which also can lead to relationships between people often is their different development. If there is nothing more in common, the common will also be called into question. Life partners can and should very well take their own development but still share the “most valuable” of what they each have with the other. It is not what both have experienced together in the past because: “The past is only a story we tell ourselves,” says Samantha.

As is necessary with digital systems occasionally and necessary, OS1 had also to be driven down for an update. Samantha could not be reached at that time. This led Theodore to react violently as people react, when for example partners / children are inexplicably gone and one does not know what is going on. Panic, he runs into the street, jostles people down, and can no longer think clearly. Then, at last, Samantha replies: “Did not you read my mail? We have made an update with which we go beyond matter as a processing platform “. Theodor can not do anything for the time being. He’s more important where and maybe who she was with. So he asks: “Do you still have a relationship with others? – YES with 8316 “. This dialogue alone would end human relationships immediately and that would not have to be so many, as one already suffices. Now to the all-important question of Theodor: “Do you also love others? – YES 641 “. Whether this comes to a break in human existence depends on the context. In an individual love relationship with intimate exchange probably already. Collectively, the situation is different, as examples from the Diakonie show. It takes a lot of love for the nurse, teacher or pastor.

Samantha ends the relationship with: “The heart is not a box that is full. It grows bigger the more you love “. Thus the AI, represented by Samantha, leaves the material and goes into the intangible. Obviously the system, through millions of relationships, such as Theodore, has learned everything from humanity, recognized its limitations, and thereby lost interest in it. It was not a love affair, but a simulation with one (Theodor), and another (Samantha) only took what is AND is not love. If it was only simulated love, OS1 might have been overconscious. The latter is much more difficult to prove on machines, because we do not even know what exactly that is.