Images

In the movie Her, an important scenario is addressed; will technology and artificial intelligence someday replace humanity? The plot of the story begins with a man who has recently been left by his wife and is utterly heartbroken. However, scientists have recently created an operating system for phones/computers that can become unique and intuitive to its user. The main character begins a friendly acquaintance with his sweet-voiced OS until he eventually feels intimate towards it. The movie goes on from there, describing the oddities and hurdles of their relationship between technology and humanity.

This film, released in 2013, was and still is a very strong example of kairos. In an age where technology is only getting more advanced every year, it has gotten to the point where our smartphone can essentially do anything from playing videogames to giving us directions (and allowing us to actually make phone calls, of course). With this technology becoming more and more prevalent, people began questioning how it will affect us and if it’s really making us more connected.

The movie makes predictions of what could come in the future technology-wise based off of the time period we live in now when there are many questions about the very topic. The idea of a man falling in love with an AI seems absurd but at the same time isn’t completely impossible. We already have Siri with iPhones, so imagining a more intimate version in the near future really isn’t so out there.

Kairos here is effective in that it uses current technological advances to make strong plausible inferences about a possible near future. A movie like this could’ve been made 20 years ago with everything the same, however kairos wouldn’t have been present; without the advent of the smartphone, AI, etc. it would merely be a fiction SciFi flick. Therefore, because of the usage of newly created tech, this movie is successful in making its audience question the possibilities of human-like artificial intelligence and what could come with it. Will humans really start forming relationships with ‘robots’? Could humans lose purpose due to AI taking up all needs to be done such as jobs and labor?

Simply put, kairos is important here because it was implemented at the beginning of a new era: the age of technology and online social networking. More than being a movie about a man falling in love with his phone, it made us question the possibilities of what was to come with so many new tools at our disposal. While we can’t know for sure, it is imperative that we take these things seriously before technology literally takes over our lives.