An OS You'll Love? AI Experts Weigh In On Her 175
theodp writes "Weighing in for the WSJ on Spike Jonze's Oscar-nominated, futuristic love story Her (parodies), Stephen Wolfram — whose Wolfram Alpha drives the AI-like component of Siri — thinks that an operating system like Samantha as depicted in the film isn't that far off. In Her, OS Samantha and BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com employee Theodore Twombly have a relationship that appears to exhibit all the elements of a typical romance, despite the OS's lack of a physical body. They talk late into the night, relax on the beach, and even double date with friends. Both Wolfram and Google director of research Peter Norvig (who hadn't yet seen the film) believe this type of emotional attachment isn't a big hurdle to clear. 'People are only too keen, I think, to anthropomorphize things around them,' explained Wolfram. 'Whether they're stuffed animals, Tamagotchi, things in videogames, whatever else.' By the way, why no supporting actor nomination for Jonze's portrayal of foul-mouthed animated video game character Alien Child?"
Stupidity... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Her" falls for one of the classic AI misconceptions. That intelligence is equal to kindness, empathy and other human traits. These traits are a result of hormones acting on the brain or other inherited traits. Unless programmed into the computer it wouldn't feel curiosity, anger, happiness etc. It would simply make logical deductions and act on them as it had been programmed to. Left alone without a task all an AI could do would be to shutdown or go over old inputs.
Re:Stupidity... (Score:5, Insightful)
look man,
it's not an AI in the story. its a magical ghost spirit.
why the fuck ask AI specialists about it even? and what the fuck, not that far off? sure it is. it's very far off.
BUT if you could do a proper AI then instructing it to not act like an asshole would be a pretty small task, all things considered.