The Movie Her & Parasocial Relationships with AI

By Isabella Clement

The Movie Her, directed by Spike Jonze, is an 5+ award winning film with a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes released in 2013. A short summary of the movie is a recently divorced man, named Theodore, who was looking for a companionship to help him move on. So, in order to do so, he purchases an AI system called “Samantha” with a female voice to keep him company. He then develops a friendship with the AI, turning eventually into a relationship with it. The story evolves into watching the what’s considered parasocial relationship between Theodore and “Samantha.” Though this movie was released in 2013, before the time that what we know of AI has evolved into, it shows a great portrayal of what a parasocial relationship can look like in modern times between people and AI.

Recently over the past few years, AI has adapted and advanced rapidly. It now caters to the user, and typically generates answers that will benefit what the system thinks the user would like to hear. A lot of social media platforms capitalized off of creating relationships with the users through AI – such as Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, etc. But, as the popularity of AI continues to grow, there has been an increase in different uses of the AI now.

In the movie, the AI system “Samantha” was created to be an assistant, but as the relationship between it and Theodore evolves, “Samantha” then learns the patterns of Theodore’s interests, and bases their interactions that begin to cater to what the system thinks that Theodore would enjoy. It starts to work, creating this false sense of a being that Theodore believes he “fell in love with”. A lot of companies began to capitalize off of this specific type of relationship. With programs such as Character.AI, Chai, Janitor.AI, etc, you can create a specific bot to interact with and portray a specific “scenario” or “relationship” with said bot. A lot of the time, the uses of these apps are popular in the sense of groups of people who enjoy a certain subject – such as TV shows, movies, books, and more. The programming in these systems cater to whatever the user types into the coding when creating the bot to interact with. As it recognizes the patterns of the user, it will start to generate responses it thinks would be appropriate for the interaction.

Another example of how the movie portrayed the recent uprising in AI is the new necklace wearing AI bot called “Friend”. Supposedly, the user wears this device around their neck, and can ask it questions anytime, hold conversations with, and have interactions that are typically between people. The reviews have been pretty negative as of recently, especially since the company spent over $1 million on advertising in New York City – and most of it was graffitied or destroyed. The argument of this recent negative review is that it creates almost a “parasocial relationship”, and isolates people from the real world.

Recent studies also support this claim of AI creating parasocial relationships and isolation, typically among people who have trouble in social interactions, feel typically lonely, and are in need of a companion when it’s not accessible at the time. By relying on the AI bots – much like Theodore does in the movie – can create a “bubble” like sensation; whereas the user doesn’t expand outside of this so-called “bubble” they’ve created around themselves and isolates them from other human interaction. But, in all research, there are typically claims of the other side of the argument that can be applicable to AI chatbots being helpful – such as helping users create social skills, formulate ideas and build off of them, and using it as a tool to benefit them from their work, relationships, and overall life.

Not to spoil the movie, but the gist of it all is the understanding that yes, AI is available for you at any time you may think you need it. But, it doesn’t solve all the problems in your life.