“For the first, maybe, 20 seconds of it, it had this real buzz. I’d say ‘Hey, hello,’ and it would say ‘Hey, how are you?’, and it was like whoa […] this is trippy. After 20 seconds, it quickly fell apart and you realized how it actually works, and it wasn’t that impressive. But it was still, for 20 seconds, really exciting. The more people that talked to it, the smarter it got.”
In this quote, Spike Jonze is describing an article he read explaining instant messaging with artificial intelligence. This was ten years ago, but it was this article that planted the seed of an idea that eventually evolved into ‘Her’. ‘Her’ has attracted numerous plaudits, including five Oscar nominations & a 94% approval rating on rottentomatoes.com, but as far as I’m concerned, he might as well be describing the film itself.
Kelly Welles 