Om’s update today, “Tech and the inevitable unintended” great piece but this section I wanted to link to which is just Om linking someplace else (love the web)
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A few years ago I had a chance to interview KK Barrett, the production designer for the Spike Jonze movie Her. Something he said left a deep impression on me.
I think all of those things are a desire for human connection. Either pay attention to me, or look what I discovered and I would like to share. That is always the human story when sharing is connecting with another person and sharing the connection you’ve had with excitement. And then you know something together, and you’re experiencing it together.
Samantha was the surrogate of a physical presence. But you’re still dealing with the replacement of a human and the difficulty that it’s never the same. Those connections happened through apps that we’re familiar with, but it wasn’t the story of those apps. It was the story of the attempt to be connected with another human.
I was reading this story in the New York Times today about how people are talking to chatbots because they are lonely in the quarantine.
Some experts believe a completely convincing chatbot along the lines of the one voiced by Scarlett Johansson in “Her” in 2013 is still five to 10 years away. But thanks to recent advances inside the world’s leading artificial intelligence labs, chatbots are expected to become more and more convincing. Conversation will get sharper. Voices will sound more human.
The New York Times
Today, on Cameo, we pay a few dollars to “talk” to the celebrities. There are other apps that let you video chat your celebrities. We are already being trained in these behaviors. We are engaging with each other on Zoom and Video Chat. Our behaviors are being programmed for that future! As I wrote earlier, the current pandemic may have forced us to work from home, but it really is a beta test for the future where climate change has made living inside the only option.
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Every year I watch Her and every year, it becomes more real. AirPods came out 3 years after Her, Siri was far more ignorant and basic, Google Assistant hadn’t launched and Chatbots were easily gamed. Now 7 years after Her’s release, the future depicted in the film, amplified by COVID-19 in a world already stricken with all time high of loneliness and depression, the need for this tool is greater than ever and we’re just waiting for some company to crack it. I say “we” as humanity.