Will we ever have love affairs with video game characters? | Technology | theguardian.com
▻http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/feb/28/love-affairs-with-video-game-characters
In Spike Jonze’s new movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix is an introverted writer on the verge of divorce who falls in love with his computer’s intelligent operating system. Exactly how far-fetched or credible you think that is probably depends on how invested you are in technology. It was after all, inspired by the real-life web application Cleverbot, which lets visitors engage in conversations with an AI program; and in a lot of ways the movie is a study of our growing reliance on devices as mediators in our social lives and love affairs. From Siri to Tinder, our smartphones and tablets are simultaneously humansing themselves while mechanising our relationships with other humans. How long before we fall for the devices themselves?