The story of the film Her seems to be in 2025. A strange observation, given that generative AI has developed so quickly in recent years.
Blade Runner took place in 2019. Green Sun took place in 2022. When dates announced in science fiction become our reality, it always feels weird. As we have just entered the year 2025, the film Her is often considered to be located in that year. This 2013 science fiction work, directed by Spike Jonze, won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2014.
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A love story with an AI
Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is a public writer, he offers his clients tailor-made letters. In his life, he feels rather alone, so much so that he still has not signed his divorce papers, more than a year after his separation. Until the day he installs, on his computer, a new operating system powered by new generation artificial intelligence. This conversational AI, designed to constantly evolve and learn, has a female voice (Scarlett Johansson) and a first name, Samantha.
Little by little, Theodore maintains an increasingly intimate relationship with Samantha, and he ends up falling in love. She too, it seems, also develops feelings. The hero's best friend (played by Amy Adams) then worries about him. Her is a very intimate SF. The film questions the nature of our feelings and takes a philosophical point of view on technology.
Her is never precisely dated in the film, but the story is supposed to take place precisely 10 to 15 years after the release date — 2013. In fact, it is often assumed that Her is located in the middle of this estimate (12.5 years later), that is to say during 2025.
At the time when Her was released in theaters, the AIs were primitive and the chatbots perfectly basic. Since then, ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, was born and became popular. AI still does not match the ultra-thorough representation that is made of it in SF works. A chatbot, even an efficient one, cannot really have feelings — they are algorithms that we anthropomorphize. Despite everything, it is strange that a film like Her is supposed to be in 2025… the year when generative AI became so well established.
Not to mention that apps like Replika have also developed on a large scale, promising to converse with chatbots presented as friends or romantic partners; which led to toxic excesses.
The conflict between OpenAI and Scarlett Johansson
The comparison between Her and ChatGPT took a strange turn last year. In a presentation video posted by OpenAI in 2024, the company revealed the first voice of artificial intelligence. This one looked exactly like that of Scarlett Johansson. But it wasn't really her. Except that the resemblance did not please the actress, who had initially been approached by the company. “In September [2023]I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to be the voice of the current ChatGPT 4.0 system »she explained. “He said he thought my voice would comfort people. » The actress then declined OpenAI's offer.
When she discovers that the voice called Sky sounds so much like her, she makes the connection: “When I heard the demo released, I was shocked, angry and in disbelief that Mr. Altman had developed a voice that sounded so eerily like mine that my closest friends and the media could not do the difference (…). Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word, 'her'. »
Faced with these setbacks – the actress called on legal advisors – OpenAI finally decided to remove this voice.
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