So here’s a fun story. And by “fun,” I mean, of course, terrifyingly dystopian in the way of all things 2024. Actor Scarlett Johansson (no relation that I am aware of) was approached twice — first last autumn and again just recently — by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who asked her to be the voice of the latest iteration of its “AI” chatbot ChatGPT. She turned down the gig. And then ChatGPT 4.0 was released, with a voice that sounded so much like Johansson’s that, she says, even her close friends thought it was her. OpenAI took down the voice when she rightly complained, but presumably lawsuits are incoming. Johansson has sued Disney in the past, and won, so, you know, good frakkin’ luck to Altman and OpenAI.
Now, the reason why Altman wanted Johansson’s voice for his “AI” is because of the brilliant 2013 movie Her — on May 13th, Altman tweeted merely “her” — in which she provides the voice of a smartphone AI (a true artificial intelligence) who falls in love with her human, played by Joaquin Phoenix; he falls in love with her, too. But while Her has a soft, modest vibe, it is not unironically or uncomplicatedly romantic: this movie posits the rise of the machines as dramedy, and the Singularity — the oft-speculated-upon future moment when computer intelligence bypasses humanity’s — as tragedy. It’s the nicest, gentlest sci-fi horror film ever. What we see in Her is not a human or technological development to be emulated. But leave it to a tech bro like Altman to completely misunderstand the movie.
Her, from writer-director Spike Jonze, is one of the best science-fiction movies of recent vintage, and well worth checking out if you want to get a grasp on some of the pitfalls not just of AI but of human overdependence on our tech toys. It’s a stunning good film with terrific performances by Phoenix and Johansson, even though she’s just a disembodied voice.
And if you check out my 2014 review, you can get a taste of how I’m starting to ramp up my 21st-century science fiction project: at the top of the review you’ll see a breakdown of the sci-fi themes the film explores that we are seeing across other recent SF movies, too. (I’m still adding this feature to my existing reviews of science fiction films, and I’ll be adding new reviews of SF movies, too.) As current events are so readily illustrating, our real world is rapidly catching up with science fiction, so the genre is more important and more vital than ever.
US: streaming on Max; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
See Her at Letterboxd for more viewing options, including in all other global regions.
They should have replaced Scarlett Johansson with Samantha Morton (the original voice of the AI in the film) in the name of karmic justice.